Aston Villa face Liverpool at Villa Park on Friday evening — the last Premier League fixture before the Europa League final in Istanbul on Wednesday. Champions League qualification still isn't mathematically confirmed through the league.
It should already be wrapped up. It isn't. And that shapes everything about how the Liverpool game needs to be approached — not as a send-off but as unfinished business. The reality is though, Unai Emery and his players will rest up, but will there be at least enough application to make a fight of the game?
This week's main show of the My Old Man Said podcast covers the ground before and after the game. Amadou Onana is touch and go off for Istanbul, Victor Lindelöf likely steps in again, and there's a brief but unavoidable discussion of the Wes Edens extortion story that's currently generating more headlines than any transfer activity.
Emery's Clipboard goes long on Ollie Watkins — who has just been named Aston Villa's Player of the Month for April, a month where he bagged his 100th Villa goal. The show sets that form against a wider argument: where have all the English strikers gone? The numbers go back to 1992-93, and the conclusion is pointed.
The Liverpool preview is the centrepiece. An aging squad, Mohamed Salah's dramatic decline in output, the Trent departure mismanaged, and a team that doesn't work hard without the ball.
The show finishes on the Aston Villa Existential Question: how many new players does this squad actually need in the starting eleven next season?
Istanbul might be a full stop, for this team, with a new era to launch afterwards.
UTV
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