Liverpool vs. Aston Villa Preview

After suffering six defeats from their last seven top flight matches, Liverpool go into their fixture with Aston Villa on Saturday April 7 amidst one of the worst bouts of form in the clubs’ history.

Thankfully for the Reds, the Villains aren’t exactly fairing much better – and Alex McLeish’s men must now resist being sucked into a relegation battle following back to back losses at the hands of Arsenal and Chelsea.

Just a couple of weeks ago, Liverpool were rejoicing at Wembley having beaten Cardiff City to lift the Carling Cup – ending a miserable six year spell devoid of silverware.

But that success appears to have merely stemmed the tide for the Kop outfit, who look set to complete their worst Premier League campaign since the inauguration of the franchise back in 1992.

It seems unthinkable that with just seven games remaining in the season, Liverpool have lost as many fixtures as they have won.

But that is the harsh reality for supporters and boss Kenny Dalglish who has been hapless to prevent a major decline over the course of the last few months.

A 2-0 reversal at Newcastle not only highlighted Liverpool’s current problems, but also signalled a new order in England’s top tier with the Reds now eighth behind Merseyside rivals Everton and a whopping nine points behind the sixth placed Magpies who are challenging for European qualification.

Liverpool will not get a better chance to stop the rot than against Aston Villa, whose worrying league decline was compounded further by the terrible news that club stalwart Stilian Petrov has been diagnosed with leukaemia.

Obviously, in such awful circumstances, results become second nature especially to the club involved.

But the news will almost definitely affect Villa’s form in the run in, be it positively or negatively.

And the Midland’s club need to pick themselves up in order to stave off the impending threat of demotion to the Npower Championship.

In terms of both clubs league position, this fixture is unquestionably more crucial for the visitors now however Liverpool will be equally adamant to win to stop the negative press if nothing else.

The Reds clearly possess a massive advantage over Villa with regards to actual squad quality, but the most alarming feature about Liverpool is the fact that their crop of talent has consistently performed below par and under the expectations of the watching world who believe they should be much better.

Villa know at least that they are experiencing a huge period of transition and on reflection their weak squad is probably doing as well as it can.

For the quality which they lack, Villa have at least managed to battle fairly well away from home for the majority of the season and have in total only been beaten four times on the road.

With eight draws racked up away from Villa Park, combined with the eight stalemates that Liverpool have penned at Anfield, this fixture between two ailing clubs almost seems destined to end in the same fashion and 7/2 looks a cracking price for the spoils to be shared.

Go To bet365

#Ad

02/04/2012     © Frixo 2024