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It is probably, in a league fixture, the most important game in the club’s recent history,’ said John McGinn before Tottenham’s visit to Villa Park.

Aston Villa’s captain, John McGinn, has described Sunday’s top-four crunch match at home to Tottenham Hotspur as the biggest league game in the club’s recent history.

Victory for Villa, who are fourth in the Premier League, would extend their buffer to fifth-placed Spurs to eight points with 10 games to play (though Spurs have played a game fewer). McGinn, who joined Villa in 2018, said the players understood the significance of the Tottenham test. Fourth place would guarantee Champions League football for Villa, who have not played in the European Cup since 1982-83.

“It is probably, in a league fixture, the most important game in the club’s recent history,” McGinn said. “So the players are aware of that. If I feel over the next couple of days that the boys are not aware, I’ll remind them.

“The supporters will be right up for it and we need to remember that so will Tottenham. We got away with one down at Tottenham’s stadium [when Villa won 2-1 in November]. They’re a really good team who we’ll fully respect. But we know at Villa Park we’re a force and hopefully we can get three points.”

Villa have been in imperious form at home this season, losing just twice in the league, and welcome Spurs three days after a Europa Conference League last-16 first-leg 0-0 draw against Ajax in Amsterdam. McGinn said Villa players had openly discussed wanting to qualify for Europe’s premier competition – which the club won in 1982 – after finishing seventh last term.

“We speak about it, we are ambitious,” said the Scotland midfielder. “Obviously we want to achieve something that the club haven’t achieved in a long, long time. Our focus from last year was to try to improve and be competitive in this competition which we’ve done so far. The manager has stressed he’s going to judge the season after gameweek 32 and see where we are from there.

“We want to improve, get [in the] Europa League and then maybe try and get in the Champions League. We know it’s in our hands and we’ve got a really exciting run of games. There’s a lot of us that have been through the journey with the club so we’ve experienced the lows and the highs are hopefully still to come.”