Smith confident Villa can beat the drop and avoid a Hammer blow

BOSS Dean Smith believes Aston Villa will beat the drop on survival Sunday.

Villa go to West Ham out of the bottom three on goal difference after Tuesday’s 1-0 win over Arsenal.

Drop rivals Watford go to the Gunners, with Bournemouth travelling to Everton. Two from three will go down but Smith is confident it will be Villa celebrating retaining their Premier League status tonight.

He said: “We have taken seven points - and it should have been nine - from the last three games and we’re above the line.

“We understand what we have to do. We have to be mindful of what’s happening at other games, as we saw in the Championship, and we’ll have some ‘What if’ scenarios in the final 15 minutes.”

Bournemouth manager Eddie Howe has told his players to “enjoy” their last roll of the Premier League dice at Everton.

The Cherries must beat the Toffees and hope both Watford and Aston Villa lose to claw their way to topflight survival.

“I don’t think the players will need help getting motivated for this game,” said Howe. “It’s controlling our emotions that is going to be key because you have to play the game and you have to play the moment, be very much in the present.”

Watford need to better Villa’s result at West Ham to stand any chance of avoiding relegation.

Caretaker manager Hayden Mullins feels his players will be able to keep their minds occupied on the task of getting a result at the Emirates Stadium and not concern themselves with what is happening elsewhere.

“I think the players, once they cross the line and the game starts, as a professional player a lot of the emotion and what is going on outside of the the game goes away,” he said.

“You start to focus on your job, there is so much going on on the pitch it is really hard to focus on what is going on off it.”

At the other end of the table, Leicester boss Brendan Rodgers has dismissed any suggestions that missing out on the Champions League would be a failure.

The Foxes host Manchester United knowing victory would book a Champions League spot.

They are fifth, a point behind United and Chelsea, in the race for the top four having already earned a Europa League place for next season.

Rodgers insisted wherever they finish, the Foxes have achieved most of their targets this term.

He said: “The six targets we had - two of those was to get to domestic finals, one was semi-final, one was quarterfinal, so we just fell short in those but met all of the other performance goals, in terms of reaching European football and improving our goalscoring.

“Apart from those two (failure to get to finals), the other goals we have achieved, and now we’ve a chance to...this is virtually like a barrierbreaking goal, a goal that will get us into the Champions League.”

Chelsea need just a point against Wolves to seal a top-four finish and Champions League qualification.