{"id":337127,"date":"2025-08-12T00:56:12","date_gmt":"2025-08-12T00:56:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/337127\/"},"modified":"2025-08-12T00:56:12","modified_gmt":"2025-08-12T00:56:12","slug":"where-aston-villa-will-finish-in-the-premier-league-has-lineker-shearer-and-richards-in-agreement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/337127\/","title":{"rendered":"Where Aston Villa will finish in the Premier League has Lineker, Shearer and Richards in agreement"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Aston Villa have a simple objective this season: return to the Champions League.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Having graced the Champions League<\/a> last season and reached the quarter-finals, there is a feel-good atmosphere at Villa Park under Unai Emery<\/a>.<\/p>\n

They missed out on a top-five finish on goal difference that would have returned them to the Champions League, and will compete in the Europa League this term.<\/p>\n

Evann Guessand signed last week to bolster Emery\u2019s attacking options after Villa<\/a> opted not to sign Marcus Rashford<\/a> or Marco Asensio permanently.<\/p>\n

\"OlliePhoto by Omar Arnau\/SOPA Images\/LightRocket via Getty Images<\/p>\n

And while Villa will be aiming for another top four finish, they may have to settle for a Europa League battle instead according to Gary Lineker and Alan Shearer.<\/p>\n

Gary Lineker and Alan Shearer back Aston Villa for another European place this season<\/p>\n

Speaking on The Rest is Football podcast, the all-time top goalscorer in the Premier League Alan Shearer<\/a> cast doubt on Villa\u2019s ability to offer a serious challenge for the Champions League, particularly given their European commitments on Thursday nights.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think something similar to last year,\u201d said Shearer. \u201cI think they\u2019ll they\u2019ll be in and around sixth, seventh [place] something like that. I don\u2019t see them having enough to get into the Champions League spots but certainly in a Europa place.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gary Lineker<\/a> agreed, saying: \u201cThere\u2019s no reason to think that they they\u2019ll slip from where they are. They\u2019ve got a brilliant coach with great energy that certainly you can\u2019t see that drifting away. So, I would say the same \u2013 just outside the Champions League spots, but a European place.\u201d<\/p>\n

Micah Richards<\/a> joined his co-hosts in predicting a Europa League place for Villa.<\/p>\n

Ollie Watkins \u2018ready to attack\u2019 Aston Villa season<\/p>\n

With Marcus Rashford leaving Aston Villa and a relatively quiet summer in the transfer market, Ollie Watkins will be needed to rediscover his 2023\/24 form that fired Villa into the Champions League and earned him a place at Euro 2024 with England.<\/p>\n\nSeason<\/strong><\/td>\nGames<\/strong><\/td>\nGoals<\/strong><\/td>\nAssists<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\n2020\/21<\/td>\n40<\/td>\n16<\/td>\n5<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\n2021\/22<\/td>\n36<\/td>\n11<\/td>\n2<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\n2022\/23<\/td>\n40<\/td>\n16<\/td>\n6<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\n2023\/24<\/td>\n53<\/td>\n27<\/td>\n15<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\n2024\/25<\/td>\n54<\/td>\n17<\/td>\n14<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

Ollie Watkins statistics at Aston Villa. (Source: Transfermarkt<\/a>)<\/p>\n

Evann Guessand will offer a new option in attack, but Watkins still aims to be the main man at Villa Park. Speaking after scoring in each of the five pre-season games he played in this summer, Watkins said: \u201cLast season I didn\u2019t play any pre-season games, so I was playing catch up in the season. <\/p>\n

\u201cFor me it is massive, so it\u2019s nice to get your confidence up and go into the season all guns blazing. We\u2019ve finished on a positive, so it puts us in good stead for the weekend.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have got big targets for the season. It\u2019s a big game against Newcastle on Saturday and then we\u2019ll roll on from there.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Aston Villa have a simple objective this season: return to the Champions League. Having graced the Champions League…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":337128,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4100],"tags":[11844,102,94,191,338,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-337127","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-football","8":"tag-alan-shearer","9":"tag-aston-villa","10":"tag-football","11":"tag-gary-lineker","12":"tag-micah-richards","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115013077327507444","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337127","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=337127"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337127\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/337128"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=337127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=337127"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=337127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}