Five wins and Manchester United are back in the Champions League.
After Leicester dropped two points last night against Arsenal, Manchester United’s route back in the Champions League became more clear.
Our next game is a trip to Villa Park where Aston Villa currently find themselves in a relegation scrap. In their previous outing against champions Liverpool, Dean Smith’s side lost 2-0 but showed glimpses that they haven’t given up on their Premier League status just yet.
Ahead of the game on Thursday night, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer was asked about Jack Grealish and Villa’s biggest threats going forward.
“They’ve shown since lockdown they can hold their own,” the United manager said, as per Manchester Evening News. “They’ve been tight game the games they’ve had they’ve worked on their shape and their counters are one off the most powerful ones in the league, they spring quickly, set plays, some good first contact players, big size and some individual players.”
Earlier this season at Old Trafford this fixture finished in a 2-2 draw, with Tyrone Mings and Grealish getting on the scoresheet. United’s goals came from a Tom Heaton own goal and Victor Lindelof.
“I think the last game they caused us some problems, both Grealish off left and El Ghazi on right, he [Grealish] scored a fantastic goal,” Solskjaer added.
“There’s been loads said about him and we need to be aware of him, if he’s off the left, middle or right, he attracts players to him but there’s not just one player in that Villa team, there are a lot of them.”
Solskjaer will be doing his best to keep the players motivated because Champions League qualification is very much in their hands. Win the five remaining league fixtures and we’re back in Europe’s most prestigious competition — before the current Europa League campaign resumes next month.
“I think so yeah, you never know what’s gonna happen but it looks like teams around are playing well,” Solskjaer said when asked if United need to win all their games to get top four.
“There are so many games, if you win every single one we’re in the top four. We cannot rely on help from anyone else, have to do it ourselves and go into next season we can put other challenges into teams.”
Read more: Marcos Rojo set for Old Trafford summer exit
