When new Leicester boss Dean Smith led Aston Villa to safety from a near-hopeless position three years ago, he repeated the same expression: We're playing tournament football. The phrase hit home.
The Premier League campaign had resumed after the three-month pause due to coronavirus and teams had cram their remaining games into a 37-day period between June and July. Rather than a league season, it felt like a knockout competition.
Villa were seven points adrift of safety with four to play but gathered eight points from those remaining games to stay above the line by a point.