Aston Villa take on Manchester United in their final game of the season next weekend - but the Red Devils' minds are elsewhere
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Ruben Amorim
Manchester United boss Ruben Amorim(Image: Getty Images)
Aston Villa will head to Manchester United on the final day of the season knowing that only a victory is likely give them a chance of securing a second straight campaign in the Champions League for next season.
Villa clinched their third straight league success - and third consecutive clean sheet - on Friday night when they saw off Tottenham Hotspur rather comfortably at Villa Park, thanks to goals from Ezri Konsa and Boubacar Kamara. It leaves them fifth ahead of the games which take place on Sunday.
As things stand, they occupy a Champions League spot, although both Manchester City - who play in the FA Cup final this Saturday against Crystal Palace - and Nottingham Forest have games in hand. The former will go back above Villa with a win over Bournemouth next week, while Forest can close the gap with victory at West Ham this weekend.
The picture will be much clearer by the time next weekend swings around; Villa will then know exactly what they need to do at Old Trafford, and whether or not they'll need favours from elsewhere, a prospect which is likely with City overwhelming favourites to beat Bournemouth in the meantime.
United, meanwhile, have a huge game themselves next week, before the Villa game; it's been a miserable campaign for the Red Devils, who are down in 16th and play 17th placed Spurs in the Europa League final in Bilbao on Wednesday night. Understandably, all of Ruben Amorim's attention is on that, and not on the Villa meeting.
There are indications of who may or may not be fit for the Villa game, though; some players would appear to have no chance of being involved against Spurs, and the four-day turnaround before the Lions would cast doubt over their participation next weekend, too.
Lisandro Martinez and Joshua Zirkzee are two players who won't play again this season with respective significant injuries, while Jonny Evans hasn't played since December and is unlikely to feature again before his contract expires.
Centre-halves Matthijs De Ligt and Lenny Yoro are described as 'major doubts' to play against Spurs but haven't been entirely ruled out, while fellow defender Diogo Dalot is working hard to ensure he is fit to travel to the Basque Country in the week.
Amorim has, though, recently recovered Luke Shaw, Mason Mount and Amad Diallo from their respective injury problems.
"I felt that, in the end, we will get all the players," Amorim replied when asked of his squad following the 1-0 defeat at Chelsea on Friday night. "I think they are okay.
"In every game, you can understand it helps me a lot to choose the starting XI for the final. So we will see. Yes, there's nothing. Of course, Luke [Shaw] and Mason [Mount] were guys we need to take care of. The other guys are fine."
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