In an exclusive interview with BOYLE Sports , the former Aston Villa and Chelsea favourite has warned Spurs supporters that Tottenham could find themselves as a shock relegation candidate like Leicester previously.
Townsend also assessed former club Aston Villa's season arguing that they should focus on the Europa League to close out their season, whether Arsenal can claim a historic quadruple and if Chelsea are now on the right path under Liam Rosenior.
Premier League Predictions
Could Spurs Replicate Leicester's Relegation?
After the Newcastle result, Spurs are in the relegation battle. They have to be very careful. You can say that they’ve had some awful luck with injuries, but let’s be honest, it never ceases to amaze me how many players get injured when their team is struggling. It’s always the way. Little knocks are just that little bit more sore when your team isn’t playing well. You just don’t get enough out of your best players when they’re in that kind of situation.
No team is too good to go down, and that includes Spurs . That's the first message someone needs to get across to that lot. If any of them think they’re too good to go down well, I've got news for you. James Maddison dismissed the danger when he was at Leicester, and in recent years, other players have experienced that and found out, but I don’t think any of the Spurs players will be taking this for granted. I can’t believe for one minute that they don't recognise where they are, the difficulties they’ve got to stay up this year.
Newcastle looked brighter, sharper, better out of the blocks and better all round. They were more convincing. I think they had 10 corners in the first half before Tottenham even threatened their penalty area. They should have been two goals clear well before the game became level. I thought Archie Gray was the player who kept trying Newcastle . He had a little bit of a go. Conor Gallagher was playing wide right. Whatever Conor Gallagher is, he isn’t a wide right player, that I do know.
Joao Paulinha started on the bench. They played Yves Bissouma , who is obviously not a favourite with the crowd because he just goes backwards and sideways. Paulinha came on at half-time and improved things a little bit, and they had a little spell. You’ll honestly see more threat from Macclesfield on Monday night in the FA Cup than you’d get from Spurs under Thomas Frank. More commitment. More belief. More all-round endeavour.
Top Six Prediction
Will Newcastle finish in the Champions League places? No, I think it’ll be the same six that are in there now. The top two are where they are, and they'll finish where they are. I think Arsenal will win the league. City will finish second.
After that, it’s a bit more unpredictable. I’d love to say that Villa will finish third, but I wouldn't put my house on that. I do think that probably Manchester United will also finish in the top four as well. Chelsea and Liverpool will be just the other side of it.
Trophies Should Be Villa’s Priority
I’d take winning the Europa League over finishing in the top four. That gets you in the Champions League , too. I just think there's a window of opportunity with any good team, and when they've got everyone fit, and they're playing well, Villa are a really, really good team. I really like what I see. When they're on it, and they're all fit, and they're playing well, they are a bloody good team. There is no doubt about that.
What Should Aston Villa Prioritise?
But that window of opportunity to win something will not stay there forever. People are going to come for Morgan Rogers. People are going to come for Ezri Konsa after the World Cup . People are going to come for Ollie Watkins . There is going to be movement at a club like Villa . Who knows that Unai Emery is thinking about all this Real Madrid talk?
Who knows? You just don't know what happens in football. Things change very quickly. But all I know is that when you've got something special going on with a group of players like Villa have, there's no doubt it's got to happen now. They've got to get over the line because otherwise people will move on. People will come and go, and the look and feel of the team will change. Sometimes that change isn't always for the better.
What I would like to see Villa do is win a trophy. They’re more than capable of winning the Europa League. When you look at the teams in there, if Villa have 90% of their first XI available, then they’re the best team in it. I think they're absolutely ready to win. They can get over the line this season, I'm convinced of it.
The FA Cup ? First, they’ve got to beat Newcastle , and that's not a straightforward game, and it’s always very much about the draw and where you end up. They’re more than capable of being very difficult for anyone and very competitive in the FA Cup , but I fancy them more for the Europa League because of the format, and I think it suits the team better and how they play. I'm pretty sure that in his private moments, Unai will be secretly focusing everything on Europe.
The Europa League gives them Champions League football and that trophy in their pockets, which I think their football deserves. They play better football than Manchester United and Chelsea, but when they lose two or three, it's more noticeable. That was evident when they went to the Emirates, and they rocked up there with three or four of key players not playing on the day. They never looked like they had enough to really go toe-to-toe with Arsenal , but if Villa can get their injured boys back, they can compete with anyone.
Some of them are long-term injuries. Kamara is long-term, John McGinn is still going to be a good few weeks yet, and I don't know how long Yuri Tielemans is going to be, so they are running out of time a bit here. It's not going to be easy for them, but I do think Villa will finish in the top four.
Arsenal’s Quad Chances
Can Arsenal win the quadruple this season? I think that is going to be too much of a stretch. They haven't got over the line in the Premier League yet. They haven't won the Champions League yet. You can’t write them off winning the quadruple because it’s still feasible, and they’ve got the personnel, but I think Arsenal’s absolute focus is the Premier League. The Champions League is a very close second.
If they ended up with one of those trophies, they’d be delighted. If they ended up with two, it would be an incredible double for them. I think winning the quadruple is something for another day, another season.
Assessing Rosenior’s Chelsea
Can Liam Rosenior win the Premier League title at Chelsea next season? I don’t see it yet, if I’m being honest. It’s very early days for Liam and Chelsea , who are the hardest club to predict because they are a roller coaster ride. Things can be going swimmingly, and then they can change very quickly in the space of a few weeks. Suddenly, another manager is available or whatever.
You can’t really say how the owners are preparing to take the club forward in the long-term or even the medium-term, because for the coach at Chelsea , it’s only about the here and now. Liam is going to develop the longer he gets in the job, and I would anticipate he’ll get the same amount of time as others have got at Chelsea , like Enzo Maresca and Graham Potter, but there'll come a point.
It could come down to issues that Liam isn’t dealing with in the way they’d like him to with the players, or not knowing how to win games a certain way, or just dealing with a club like Chelsea with those players and how it can get when you’ve lost a couple of games. Dealing with the fans, the media and that sort of ownership when you are a rookie coach in this day and age is very difficult. It’s not easy to understand how to handle that pressure when the heat starts to get turned up as a younger coach. It’s easy for someone who doesn’t have the right experience to start looking like a dead man walking.
We see it with a lot of younger coaches. When things go wrong, they can start to look isolated and get a little bit irritable with the press. They say one or two things, and people read into it about signs of stress and other problems behind the scenes. The older boys are better at managing that because they’ve seen it all. I don't see Chelsea as title winners anytime soon because of the amount of change and turnover at the club, but they've got a bright coach, there's no doubt about that. He's a smart kid, Liam , and I wish him all the best because he's going to need it.
Will Chelsea Finish Top-4?
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