John McGinn brands Tottenham visit biggest match in Aston Villa's recent history

Unai Emery’s team host Spurs knowing victory would put them firmly in the driving seat to secure Champions League qualification with just 10 Premier League matches remaining.

Fourth-placed Villa hold a five-point cushion over the visitors, who have held one game fewer and McGinn, the club’s longest-serving player is making no attempt to play down Sunday’s significance.

“Everyone knows how important the game is,” he said. “It’s probably, in a league fixture, the most important game in the club’s recent history.

“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 the Tottenham Stadium (earlier in the season). 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.”

Though Villa’s players have talked openly about their Champions League ambitions, McGinn revealed Emery is yet to speak about it in team meetings, saying he won’t assess targets until just six matches remain.

The match will kick-off less than 72 hours after Villa faced Ajax in the Europa Conference League.

McGinn said: “The way he (Emery) respects and focuses on each team filters through and full focus was on Thursday.

“Thankfully we’ve come through the match unscathed injury-wise and hopefully we’ll have everyone fit and raring to go on Sunday.

“The important thing for us is to recover. Tottenham have obviously not had a game so we need to make sure we’re fully fit and raring to go.

“We (the players) speak about (the Champions League), we are ambitious. 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.

“Try to improve, get Europa League and then maybe try and get the Champions League.

“We know it’s in our hands at the moment 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.”