Carling Cup Semi-Final - Blackburn vs Aston Villa

Blackburn host Aston Villa tonight in the first leg of the Carling Cup semi-final as both sides compete for a trip to Wembley to face the winner of Manchester United vs Manchester City. The visitors have lost their way in recent weeks, losing to Arsenal and Liverpool, but before then they had won four games in a row without conceding a goal. They will need a return to that form if they are to get through at the expense of the team that eliminated Chelsea in the previous round.

Villa are slight favourites for the match at 8/5 (bet £80 to win £50 profit), leaving Blackburn as underdogs at 2/1. The hosts have not won any of their last ten games and crashed out of the FA Cup, losing 3-1 to the very opponents they face again tonight. The draw is priced at 12/5 and could be interesting as Rovers have drawn six of their last ten in all competitions.

The bookmakers seem to think the match will be close and have made a 1-1 draw the most likely result at 6/1. A 1-0 win for Villa is available at 15/2, slightly shorter than the 8/1 for 1-0 to Blackburn. A goalless draw is priced at 9/1 and another 3-1 win for Villa is available at 25/1.

Young England and Aston Villa striker Gabriel Agbonlahor is favourite to open the scoring tonight at 11/2, followed by Norwegian team-mate John Carew at 7/1. Franco Di Santo, a twenty year-old Argentinian on loan from Chelsea, is 15/2 along with fellow Blackburn strikers Benni McCarthy and Jason Roberts.

Aston Villa are priced at 7/2 to be winning at both half-time and full-time tonight, as they did last time the sides met. They also played in the league in September and Blackburn won 2-1 with the scores level at 1-1 at the interval. Draw/Blackburn is priced at 11/2, with Blackburn/Blackburn at 9/2.

Bookmakers see Villa as the more likely of the two sides to win the Carling Cup this season, priced at 10/3, with Blackburn at 11/2.

Blackburn vs Aston Villa betting odds

Carling Cup betting odds