Aston Villa to win, Ollie Watkins First Goalscorer

05/04/2024
15:00 CET

Unai Emery’s Aston Villa travel to the south coast to take on Roberto de Zerbi’s Brighton looking to consolidate their 4^th place position in the table.

Villa have won 4 out of the last 6 away games in the Premier League, including a highly impressive 2-0 win at Arsenal in their last game on the road.

In contrast, de Zerbi’s side are in awful form, with just 1 win in their last 9 league games and only finding the net a meagre 4 times in those matches.

The graphic below shows Aston Villa ranked 4^th for current form over the last 10 matches and Brighton down in 17^th over the same number of games.

Furthermore, the goals have dried up for Brighton in recent weeks, with them only finding the net once in their last 5 fixtures.

On the other hand Villa have scored in 14 of their 17 matches away from Villa Park this campaign and in each of their last 6 away games.

Emery’s team have only failed to score in 1 of their previous 14 games in the Premier League and against a Brighton defence which has kept just 2 clean sheets from their 16 home fixtures we fancy they will have enough firepower to breach The Seagulls defence in this one and claim the three points.?The graphic below shows Brighton in 15^th for the number of clean sheets at home out of all teams in the Premier League this season.

Aston Villa are 2.30 with LeoVegas to win and given the current form of both sides it looks difficult to see past a victory for Emery’s men come full-time.Ollie Watkins is 5.25 with LeoVegas to repeat his exploits from the reverse game back at Villa Park and be the first goalscorer in the match.

Watkins opened the scoring and went on to bag a hat-trick as Villa thrashed Brighton 6-1 back in September.

The England striker has had a sensational season in front of goal and has scored 19 times in the Premier League so far this term, making him the 3^rd top scorer in the league.

With 8 goals in his last 11 Premier League appearances, it wouldn’t be a surprise if Watkins breaks the deadlock at the AMEX and helps fire Emery’s side one step closer to Champions League qualification.