Martin Jol thinks that Aston Villa could rival Arsenal for a top-four Premier League place this season.
Jol's Hamburg side entertain Martin O'Neil's men in the final game of their Uefa Cup group stage campaign.
And the former Tottenham boss is full of praise for Villa and thinks they could already be a match for Arsenal.
"I would say Villa are in the top five clubs now - and they could be a top-four club," said Jol.
"Arsenal are not so good now. They are no longer automatically a top-four side. Villa can definitely take their place and can reach the Champions League.
"They are one of the bigger clubs. In fact, when they won the European Cup (in 1982) I was there at the game in Rotterdam.
"I had to keep quiet as I was amongst the Villa fans.
"Villa are now a great side and we were interested at Tottenham in signing Ashley Young. He was a bit too expensive in the end at £9million.
"But he has gone up a level since then, Gabriel Agbonlahor is one of the quickest players in the Premier League while James Milner is also an excellent player.
"They have got the talent, as we had a couple of years ago at Spurs, and the future is for them."
Hamburg, like Villa, are already through but Jol insists they want to win Group F.
"We want to win and we want to win the group," he said.
"There is not so much pressure now because we have already qualified for the later stages.
"But we want to give our fans a good finale to the season, in this competition and when the Bundesliga restarts."
After touching down in Germany, O'Neill confirmed that he would be using a number of his squad players.
Ashley Young, Gabriel Agbonlahor, Gareth Barry, Martin Laursen and James Milner have been left in Birmingham as O'Neill considers the hectic Christmas fixture list.
"We have qualified for the knockout stages and I would have taken that had you offered it to me in the middle of July when we started out in the Intertoto Cup," he said.
"Here is an opportunity, with us getting some momentum in the Premier League, to rest a couple of players who have played a lot of games for us. Barry has had no break whatsoever - Agbonlahor, Young, Milner have been the same.
"We want to try to win the game if at all possible. I accept that, had we needed something, those players left behind would have been on the plane."
The likes of Brad Guzan, Zat Knight, Nicky Shorey, Nigel Reo-Coker, Moustapha Salifou, Isaiah Osbourne, Marlon Harewood and Nathan Delfouneso are likely to feature.
0 comments:
Post a Comment