Villa are battling Manchester United and Chelsea for Champions League qualification via the Premier League
08:42, 09 Feb 2026Updated 08:43, 09 Feb 2026
Gary Neville(Image: The Gary Neville podcast on YouTube)
Gary Neville believes Aston Villa could miss out on the Champions League.
Unai Emery’s side are in third place in the Premier League with 13 matches left in the race to finish in the top four.
But, while the rest of the top five teams all won at the weekend, Villa dropped points in a 1-1 draw at Bournemouth.
It comes after Villa also lost their last two matches at Villa Park, against Everton and Brentford.
And their stumble has coincided with Manchester United and Chelsea both winning four matches in a row to close the gap.
United are now just three points behind Villa in fourth place, with Chelsea a further point back in fifth spot.
After being talked about as having an outside chance of challenging Arsenal and Manchester City for the title only a few weeks ago, Neville now thinks Villa could drop out of the Champions League qualification places.
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“I did say last week Villa could miss out, but I said I hoped they wouldn’t,” he said on The Gary Neville Podcast. “The manager, to be fair, knows what to do.
“But they’ve got their three midfield players missing – McGinn, Tielemans and Kamara – and they’re out for quite a while.
“It’s a big ask for Villa to miss their engine room, the heart of their team.
“So that’s the big question on them. But, again, Unai Emery is someone who you wouldn’t put it past him to find a way. He has an ability to find a way.
“The team we’re probably most confident about finishing in there out of Chelsea, Liverpool, Villa and United is United right now because of what they’re doing, but things can turn around quite quickly.
“I don’t think anybody in that top five or six is going to be sat there saying ‘we’re OK’.”
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