Aston Villa’s win over Liverpool on Friday night has given them little to play for against Manchester City next week, but the same isn’t true for Bournemouth.
Aston Villa’s 4-2 win over Liverpool on Friday guaranteed their spot in next season’s Champions League, taking a lot of pressure off the club ahead of their final week of matches.
Villa will travel to compete in the Europa League final against Freiburg on Wednesday, but they no longer need the Champions League qualification that winning the competition provides. Instead, their full focus will be on just lifting the trophy.
Unfortunately, that gives them significantly less to play for in their final game of the Premier League season, with the only thing at stake being the prize money for finishing fourth versus fifth (the only positions realistically open to them).
So if any Arsenal fans were hoping for a favour from Villa against Manchester City on the final day, they’re unlikely to get one.
Conversely, Bournemouth still have plenty to play for ahead of their match at home to City on Tuesday. The Cherries still have two possible paths to Champions League football, and both of them will likely require getting results in their final two games.
The first path is the simplest, win their final two games and hope Liverpool drop points to Brentford, allowing Bournemouth to leapfrog Liverpool into fifth on the final day.
The other path is more complicated, as it requires Villa to win the Europa League and finish fifth (specifically fifth, not fourth), which would make sixth place a Champions League spot.
That’s still very possible if Liverpool beat Brentford, Villa lose to City, and Villa win the Europa League. At that point, Bournemouth could qualify for the Champions League in sixth.
The good news for Bournemouth is that this makes the Liverpool result against Brentford largely irrelevant.
Assuming Villa win the Europa League (which is likely), and lose to City (also likely), Liverpool could lose/draw to Brentford and give Bournemouth the chance to overtake them, or they could beat Brentford and drop Villa to fifth, making sixth a Champions League spot.
Bournemouth just need to get results in their own games, hope Villa win the Europa League, and their Champions League hopes will remain very much alive.
More than that, Bournemouth are also still playing for Europa League or Europa Conference League football. A couple of results in their final games would at least guarantee some form of European football, even if everything else happens to go against them to deny them the Champions League.
Bournemouth won’t be looking to do Arsenal any favours on Tuesday, but they have every motivation to try and take points off the Gunners’ title rivals.
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