Villa aim to cause upset against Man City

Aston Villa have had a tough run of fixtures recently, having come against both Chelsea and Arsenal and things are not going to get any easier this weekend when they host current champions Manchester City at Villa Park on Saturday night.

Paul Lambert will be hoping for a return to the sort of form that helped Villa make an unbeaten start to the Premier League season including impressive away wins at both Stoke City and Liverpool. However, after conceding six goals in their last two games, Lambert will be looking towards his defence and hoping they can combat the potent attacking threat of Manchester City.

As far as Manuel Pellegrini is concerned, the Manchester City manager will be happy to get back to the Premier League following another disappointing night in Europe and Aston Villa could be the perfect opposition with which to get back to winning ways. Despite a good 4-2 away win against Hull City last weekend, Manchester City have only won two of their last seven games in all competitions and can not afford any slips ups here with Chelsea looking strong at the top of the table. With Manchester City unable to afford anything but a win, they can be backed at 1/2 with bet365 to come away with all 3 points from the game and keep themselves in contention at the top of the table.

With Ron Vlaar still sidelined by injury, it will probably fall to Nathan Baker and Philippe Senderos to keep out the likes of Sergio Aguero and Edin Dzeko, who will surely fancy their chances of finding the back of the net against a defence missing their leader. Aguero is on offer at 7/2 with paddypower to open the scoring and Dzeko is available at 13/10 to score at any time during the match.

It`s not all doom and gloom for Aston Villa though, who have enjoyed a good start to the season despite suffering defeats in their last two games. In addition to this, they know how to beat Manchester City at home, having done so with a shock 3-2 win last season, a game that goalkeeper Joe Hart will want to forget. With Manchester City still stuttering for early season form, Aston Villa are a big 7/1 to stage a repeat of their victory last season and claim all three points. Villa wideman Andreas Weimann has enjoyed a promising start to the season and will be hoping to capitalise on space left by Manchester City`s fullbacks as they push forward, the Austrian is 12/1 to score first in the match. The return to fitness of Christian Benteke will provide a big boost to the Villa fans and his team mates, the Belgian international is likely to start on the bench after a long lay off with injury and is 10/3 with ladbrokes to score at any time.

One thing that is almost guaranteed in this game is goals, there were five in this fixture last season and neither team has looked particularly convincing at the back in their last couple of games this season. betfred have odds of 5/6 that both teams will score and william hill offer odds of 2/1 that there will be over 3.5 goals in the match. Aston Villa have struggled to keep out the opposition in the first half of games recently and with Pellegrini`s men looking to stamp their authority on the match early on, the 13/10 available with BetVictor for Manchester City to lead at half-time and go on to win the match is tempting. Considering that it is likely there will good chances at both ends of the pitch, consider the 11/5 at bet365 for both teams to score and Manchester City to win.

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03/10/2014     © Frixo 2026