Unai Emery admits he is still looking over his shoulder at Newcastle in the race for Champions League

Newcastle United are enjoying a nice run of form lately and as a result, now sit in sixth place in Premier League thanks to other teams around them dropping points.

Most Newcastle fans would be ecstatic if Eddie Howe could guide his team to European football again after such a bizarre season which has seen disruption week-in and week-out in the form of injuries and suspensions.

Europa Conference League qualification even looked out of the question not too long ago and now, there's still a chance, however slim, that Newcastle could steal a Champions League spot.

It's perhaps a bit far-fetched, possibly even greedy to be thinking like that, but it's not just us.

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Unai Emery is not counting Newcastle out of the race just yet

Aston Villa manager, Unai Emery doesn't feel we're out of the running yet either. Speaking to BBC Sport's 606 Football Phone In, Emery admitted that he's still wary of Newcastle.

“We are at 33 [games] and now we can feel contenders to be in the top five.

“We have been fighting with Tottenham but still Man United and Newcastle, I think both teams will and can get points. So we have to be very demanding of ourselves.

As a fan base we've believed in weirder things - we believed Remy Cabella would be mint

Honestly, given how often the teams around us are dropping points, he may not be talking as much nonsense as we think.

The title race is pretty much over after Liverpool and Arsenal fell to defeats at the weekend, Man United should have come away from Bournemouth empty-handed but VAR ensured they got a point.

Obviously, Spurs got battered on Saturday, so we could end up in a battle with Aston Villa for that final Champions League place. A lot also depends on the European coefficient as to whether it will be top five or top four who get the Champions League spots, but that's down to how well the English teams do in Europe this week - it's not looking good so far.

Another cheeky Champions League spell? Stranger things have happened.