Aston Villa v Everton

Aston Villa vs Everton Preview

Following last season's successful campaign in the Premier League which included attaining a place in the Europa Conference League, Aston Villa headed into the opening day fixture with Newcastle United in confident mood and belief that they could at least hold their won at St James' Park.

90 minutes later, Unai Emery's side had been soundly beaten 5-1 by The Magpies which handed the west midlands club the worst possible start to this English top flight campaign, so Villa supporters will be feeling that the only way is up from here on in.

The villains now return to Villa Park for this Sunday's clash with Everton who also lost in last weekend's opening fixture at home to Fulham, but the hosts will be seeking to rekindle the sort of form which saw them achieve a seventh place finish, and a sequence of results which saw Villa suffer just two defeats in their last 15 league matches of last term.

This promising run of results included 10 victories overall for Unai Emery's charges but it was Aston Villa's form at Villa Park which was really impressive as the hosts won each of their last seven home games on the trot, scoring two goals or more in five of these along with keeping five clean sheets in the process.

Everton were handed a much more modest defeat at home by Fulham as only the one goal separated The Toffees from their London counterparts in last weekend's season opener at Goodison Park but nevertheless, it looks like being another long and tough battle against relegation for the merseyside club this term.

Manager, Sean Dyche, was drafted in towards the end of January in order to attempt to save a seemingly doomed Everton outfit from the drop and to his credit, he achieved that in spades as Everton finished fourth from bottom and two points above the bottom three.

To put this into context, before Dyche's arrival, Everton were sitting second from bottom in the Premier League table and two points adrift of safety so Dyche certainly made a difference last term.

However, an uphill battle against relegation looms again for the visitors especially when you consider they have managed to capture just two wins from their last 12 league matches overall in the English top flight and their last home meeting against Aston Villa resulted in a 2-0 win for the west midlands club.

Aston Villa v Everton Verdict

There is a reunion for defender, Lucas Digne, and his former club in this fixture but this will count for very little here this Sunday as Villa look to set the record straight here at Villa Park and having won the previous four meetings on the trot, Villa look the more likely for the three points in this clash.

Therefore, our main bet will be Aston Villa win @ 1.70

Other side bets worth considering:

Aston Villa win & Under 2.5 goals @ 4.00

Correct score: Aston Villa 2-0 @ 8.50