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The focus will be on whether Liverpool can obtain the Europa League place that seemed impossible for them at the start of the year. However, Aston Villa also have a desire to win – three points could plausibly take them as high as ninth. Gérard Houllier, still recuperating from his health scare, is unable to face the club with whom he won six trophies at the start of the century and given Liverpool have not lost at Villa Park in their last 12 visits, they will be hopeful of pipping Tottenham, who face Birmingham, to fifth place. William Unwin

Venue Villa Park, Sunday 4pm

Tickets Sold out

Last season Aston Villa 0 Liverpool 1

Referee L Probert

This season’s matches 25 Y65, R5, 2.80 cards per game

Odds Aston Villa 19-10 Liverpool 5-4 Draw 11-5

Aston Villa

Subs from Marshall, Makoun, Heskey, Pires, Cuéllar, Bradley, Delph, Bannan, Albrighton

Doubtful None

Injured Clark (hamstring, Aug)

Suspended None

Form guide WDLDWW

Disciplinary record Y68 R2

Leading scorer Bent 9

Liverpool

Subs from Meireles, Robinson, Poulsen, Kyrgiakos, Cole, Ngog, Jones, Gulacsi, Jovanovic, Hansen, Wilson, Shelvey, Sterling, Coady

Doubtful Meireles (hamstring)

Injured Aurélio (hamstring, 29 May), Kelly (hamstring, 29 May), Gerrard (groin, Aug), Agger (knee, Aug) Suspended None

Form guide LWWWDW Disciplinary record Y62 R2

Leading scorer Kuyt 13

Match pointers

• Aston Villa have averaged one goal per game on the final day of Premier League seasons (18 goals in 18 games)

• Liverpool are unbeaten in their last seven final day games, last losing 2-1 to Chelsea in 2003

• If selected, Brad Friedel will make his 400th Premier League appearance, having first played in the division for the visitors

• Liverpool have conceded seven penalties this season, a divisional high

• The hosts have scored at least once in 15 of their last 16 fixtures

Aston VillaLiverpoolguardian.co.uk

• Liverpool’s head of sports medicine impressed by Italian
• Aquilani ‘has looked very sharp’, he says

The Liverpool midfielder Alberto Aquilani has completely recovered from the ankle problem which hampered his first season at Anfield, according to the club’s new medical chief.

The Italian had to wait more than two months for his Reds debut following a £20m move from Roma last year and then endured an indifferent campaign. But the 25-year-old is now back with the club for pre-season training and has already made a positive impression on the newly-appointed head of sports medicine and sports science, Peter Brukner.

Brukner told LFC Weekly magazine: “Alberto’s ankle, which was a problem last year, is now 100% healed. He has been training and has looked very sharp. He’ll have to keep working on his injury prevention programme and if he does, I’m sure the supporters will see the best of him because last season was very frustrating for him injury-wise.”

Brukner’s next task is to assess the fitness of the Spain striker Fernando Torres, who pulled up with an adductor injury in Sunday’s World Cup final in South Africa. Torres has now returned to Madrid with the rest of the victorious Spain squad and Liverpool staff are to fly out to meet him this week.

Brukner is generally pleased with the health of the squad but the group is only coming back together slowly because of varying lengths of involvement at the World Cup. “Staggering pre-season presents a challenge,” he said. “I’m guessing that the World Cup guys will be pretty fit anyway. You don’t lose a lot in three weeks and they’ve all been in contact with us to speak about their programme over that period.”

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• Crucial documents will be made available for first time
• Panel will compile a report on the ‘full story of the disaster’

The government has announced the make-up of the panel that will next month begin making public key secret documents relating to the Hillsborough tragedy in 1989 and compiling a report that will tell the “full story” of the disaster.

Shortly after the 20th anniversary of the disaster in April last year, the government responded to pressure from the families of the 96 Liverpool fans who died by promising to make crucial documents from the police, fire and ambulance services, the coroner, the government and Sheffield City Council available for the first time.

It was revealed today that the panel, chaired by the Right Rev James Jones, Bishop of Liverpool, will meet in Liverpool on 4 February for the first of a series of monthly meetings and will be required to produce a report that not only explains its work but “will also illustrate how the information disclosed adds to public understanding of the tragedy and its aftermath”.

The seven members of the Hillsborough Independent Panel are: Christine Gifford, public information expert; TV producer and researcher Katy Jones; Paul Leighton, former deputy chief constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland; Phil Scraton, academic criminologist professor; Dr Bill Kirkup, former associate medical director at the Department of Health; broadcaster Peter Sissons; and archivist Sarah Tyacke.

Prof Scraton, who was formerly director of the Hillsborough Project and has written two books on the subject, said the move was “a clear recognition that the families and survivors have had neither the full story nor appropriate acknowledgement of the circumstances in which 96 men, women and children died and hundreds were injured”.

He added: “It confirms their resilience and courage in pursuing full disclosure of the context, circumstances and aftermath of an avoidable tragedy in the face of hostile opposition and it represents an unprecedented development in setting new standards regarding the wider public interest.”

Jones, who has worked on drama documentaries including Jimmy McGovern’s Hillsborough, said: “It is hugely important that the Hillsborough families will at last have access to all of the information surrounding this tragedy. Opening up the archive will, I hope, help to heal the pain of not knowing.”

The Hillsborough Independent Panel and its terms of reference were established last month. Its role is to oversee public disclosure of the documents, letting the victims’ families know their content first.

However, some documents will continue to be withheld for legal reasons. The terms of reference state: “The fundamental principles will be full disclosure and no redaction of content, except in the limited legal and other circumstances outlined in the protocol.”

As such, documents subject to “legal professional privilege” will not be made public and the names of junior officials and police officers up to and including the rank of sergeant will have their names redacted, as will members of the public.

The release of government papers relating to the previous administration will require the approval of the Conservative party.

South Yorkshire police, principally blamed for the disaster by Lord Justice Taylor in his official report, have agreed to make public the documents they hold in around 200 storage boxes.

The other public bodies releasing their records include Sheffield City Council, criticised by Taylor for failing to certify that Hillsborough was safe, and West Midlands police, who investigated the disaster for Taylor and the Director of Public Prosecutions.

The decision of the coroner, Dr Stefan Popper, to impose a 3.15pm cut-off time on his inquest into the causes of death angered many families of the deceased, who argued that it prevented a full analysis of the response by police and other emergency services.

Today’s announcement was welcomed by bereaved relatives. Hillsborough Family Support Group chair Margaret Aspinall, who lost her son 18-year-old son James in the disaster, said: “We welcome the panel which has the confidence of all interested parties and is felt capable of executing this very important task. We look forward to working with them over the coming months and hope that the outcome is satisfactory.”

The campaign for the documents to be released was last year taken up by Andy Burnham, now health secretary, and Maria Eagle, the junior justice minister, who consistently accused South Yorkshire police of “a conspiracy to cover up” its own culpability for the disaster by presenting a case that supporters’ misbehaviour was to blame.

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