Rarely does a Premier League fixture carry two entirely separate sources of pressure, pulling in opposite directions, with genuinely different things at stake for each side. Aston Villa are 5th on 58 points, inside the Champions League places, and host Nottingham Forest on Thursday in the return leg of their Europa League semi-final, having lost the first leg 0-1 at the City Ground. Win the Europa League and they qualify for the Champions League automatically regardless of where they finish in the table. Tottenham are 18th, in the relegation zone on 34 points with 4 games remaining. West Ham sit directly above them in 17th on 36 points, but have played 1 game more. A Tottenham win this afternoon takes them above West Ham on the same number of games played. They do not need to wait for results elsewhere. They can climb out of the bottom 3 today.