Lukewarm before the storm? Aston Villa v Liverpool match preview and team news

Villa's last two Premier League matches couldn't be much more important, yet the top priority lies elsewhere

Winning this match would be massive for Aston Villa. Three points would lock them into Champions League places and that would be a wonderful place to be for more reasons than I can list.

Villa need to finish in the top five places in the Premier League until such time as they don’t. To see things any other way would be to take the Europa League final for granted, which couldn’t be more stupid.

What should be a matter of balancing priorities is in fact more like one must-win match after another, yet the timing – and this is down to nothing other than Villa’s failings on the pitch – means that Friday’s league game against Liverpool must be outranked by Istanbul.

Unai Emery will name a team for this match with the final in mind. He’ll believe they can win it and he might be right.

As little faith as I have in Villa to pull off a passable second-string performance, the issue against Tottenham Hotspur last weekend was to do with attitude and appetite, not ability.

Liverpool, Villa’s Premier League opponents on Friday, are beatable. There’s been little suggestion in recent weeks that Villa will beat them in these circumstances but stranger things happen in football every day.