• Scot in charge of relegated Birmingham City last season
• Villa travel to Liverpool with one win in eight league games
Alex McLeish has admitted that Aston Villa are fighting for survival but the Scot remains confident he will avoid the ignominy of back-to-back relegations from the Premier League. Although Villa are five points clear of safety with a game in hand, they have enjoyed only one victory in their last eight league matches and travel to Liverpool on Saturday looking nervously over their shoulders as Bolton, Queens Park Rangers and Wigan all won last weekend.
McLeish was in charge of Birmingham City when they were relegated on the final day of last season – a fate he also suffered three years earlier at St Andrew's – and the Villa manager does not want to contemplate the prospect of taking a team down for a second successive campaign. "I don't believe it will happen. That is my school of thought," he said.
"I know the media will bring it up, that's fine, I can handle that. It will maybe be on the tip of everyone's tongue. [But] it is not something I believe will happen."
It has been a difficult period for Villa on the pitch and a traumatic time off it with the news that Stilian Petrov has been diagnosed with acute leukaemia. Randy Lerner, the club's owner, flew back from the United States this week to visit the Bulgarian, who has been undergoing treatment in London. Lerner later went to the training ground where he addressed the players about Petrov's condition and also offered them some words of encouragement for the last eight games.
"He wanted to speak about [Petrov]," said McLeish. "I said [to him]: 'Just have a chat with the lads in general, I think they would appreciate it because I'm sure they're fed up with my voice every single day and it's always nice to hear somebody else's voice, especially the owner's.' He spoke well. He spoke about Stilian's illness and about the lads and their own battles over the next few weeks, and wished them well. He's obviously concerned that we try and get back up the table a little bit – that's natural. [But] he never put them under any pressure or never had to say any Churchillian speech, or anything like that. It was just a natural moment."
Villa's squad remains severely depleted ahead of two games in the space of three days, at Anfield on Saturday and at home against Stoke City on Easter Monday. As well as Petrov's absence, Villa will once again be without Darren Bent, Richard Dunne, Carlos Cuellar, Ciaran Clark and Jermaine Jenas for both fixtures. Alan Hutton has recovered from a calf strain but Charles N'Zogbia is doubtful and Andreas Weimann is also struggling.
"We don't have the experienced squad to cope with [two games in the space of three days] but we've certainly got numbers," McLeish said. "There will be a lot of unfamiliar names that will take the field or be on the bench.
But we are confident that we can go in with these guys."