Conor Hourihane urges Aston Villa to not give up on achieving play-off dream this season

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Aston Villa are 13 points off the top six and currently enduring a rotten run of form.

Conor Hourihane has suggested that Aston Villa must not give up on the idea of reaching the Championship play-offs this season, but must also have one eye on the next campaign, the Birmingham Mail reports.

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Steve Bruce’s men are currently facing an uphill battle trying to get themselves into contention for a place in the top six. They currently sit 13 points adrift of Sheffield Wednesday, who occupy that final play-off spot, and are currently going through an extremely poor run of form.

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The Villans have not won in the league since Boxing Day, and have lost five of their last six in all competitions despite not facing any of the teams currently inside the division’s top 10 during that run, though they did face Tottenham in the FA Cup.

But Hourihane has urged his teammates that they must keep fighting this season, whether that be for a top six spot for this term or to give them the most momentum going into the the next campaign.

“We’re going to have to go on a fantastic run to make the play-offs, that has to be the aim until it’s mathematically impossible,” he said, as reported by the Mail.

“But instead of making it a project from pre-season next season, maybe we should make it a project for now.

“We can maybe gain some months on teams going into it next season if we don’t do it this year.”

Aston Villa manager Steve Bruce

While it will definitely be an uphill battle for Villa to get themselves into promotion contention this year, there is often one team that emerges from mid-table heading into the final third of the season and puts serious pressure on the top six.

Of course, that would require Aston Villa to turn their form around completely almost immediately, but they arguably boast the quality within their squad to put a string of wins together.

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And as Hourihane suggests, while that may not be enough this time around, there is no reason why they cannot use an upturn in form to give them confidence going into next year.