Martin O’Neill admits Everton are ‘in the driving seat’ to clinch a UEFA Cup place – but insists Villa’s charge for Europe will go right to the wire.
A point from yesterday’s 2-2 draw at fifth-placed Everton appeared to hand the advantage to the Toffees with two games left.
But David Moyes’s side have to go to Arsenal on Sunday before hosting Newcastle and the Villa boss believes his team can remain in the hunt to the death.
“I can see Europe going right to the wire and we have to keep our side of the bargain,” said O’Neill.
“Everton are in the driving seat. They are in control of their destiny but they have a tough game on Sunday at Arsenal.
“We have a tough game against Wigan and the only thing that we can really do is put incredible pressure on them by winning the game.
“If you could give me either position- I would take Everton’s rather than ours.
“They have the better of it but of course we can make it.
“We’re going to really strive for this. But we have to keep going.”
O’Neill added: “I couldn’t be more pleased with their effort. The players said if we’d played for another six or seven minutes we might have won it.”
Striker John Carew remains confident Villa can clinch a UEFA Cup spot for the first time by league qualifiction for 10 years.
“We have a real chance this weekend when we play Wigan and Everton play Arsenal,” said Carew, whose second equaliser took his tally to 13 goals.
“Wigan will be a diffcult match but we’re confident we can take three points. We just have to focus and go for it.
“We have created a great opportunity to get into Europe, we still probably have to take all six points available but I am confident we can do that.
“We have great belief we can still take fifth place. We both have tough matches ahead but we have a better goal difference.
“Hopefully we may be able to rely on that.
“It was one of our most difficult matches of the season. It was a great achievement to come back twice and show great spirit.”
One Comment
everton are away at arsenal next sat lunchtime, so villa could be level on points and ahead on goal diff by tea time saturday. it makes it very interesting if it goes to the last day (villa away at west ham, everton at home to newcastle) but the annoying thing is that we dropped 5 points at home to ‘boro and sunderland, how costly could that be?