Yet more goals at Villa Park ..............
Jan 24, 2025
Premier League: Aston Villa- West Ham United
These two met here at famous old Villa Park two weeks ago in the FA Cup when I wrote .........
Aston Villa priorities should be the EPL and the Champions League, they are very much in contention in the latter and still within touching distance of 4th place in the league and this season, even 5th might be rewarded with a CL spot. They do not need progression in the FA Cup and it is ten seasons since they went beyond R4 and they have lost at this stage in 7 of those 9 campaigns. Head coach Unai Emery has done wonders at Villa and in Europe with all his clubs, but I am not sure that he "gets" domestic cups and in England he is 0-2-6 in eight games against fellow top flight opposition in cups and 0-0-5 within those as a home team!
The Hammers have a seven point buffer over the drop zone and six points over five teams and should be able to ease to survival, so they need something else to keep interest alive, especially with a new head coach at the club. Graham Potter returned to management this midweek, replacing Julen Lopetegui and whilst I doubt he has done more than said hello at the training ground and shook hands as they boarded the team bus, the Hammers will be expecting a bounce! Their supporters had already bought up the full 5,700 ticket allocation, which is great for a Friday night game and that was before the change in head coach. The Irons record at VP is good, losing just once in six visits and scoring 9 goals in the last 4, three of which they won and London teams do seem to do well in the stadium. I feel their motivation to win will be greater and, if they were forced to choose, Villa would far sooner have the points from the league meeting and the two clubs meet again here at VP in just 16 days time.
West Ham led early and for over an hour and should have had a second, but finally lost 2-1 and for the fifth game running the Hammers conceded 2+ goals ( 15 total) and look suspect again today and issues at the back have been further compounded by the suspension to CB Konstantinos Mavropanos. The Hammers are hard hit by injury to a lot of players and I discussed that last week when they lost 2-0 at home to Palace. However, this week has been the first since Graham Potter and his staff arrived that they have been able to spend meaningful time on the training pitch and several of the players spoke about that being hugely beneficial. Villa should win and it remains a good time to play United, but they have kept just 4 clean sheets in 22 home games, given up 2+ goals in 12 and the bet I am going with today would have won 15 times in that sequence, which is 68.18% and we can bet it at 45.87%.
2.25 units both teams to score and "over" 2.5 goals @ 2.18 asian line.
Good luck!
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