Carling Cup football betting - Portsmouth vs Aston Villa

Portsmouth host Aston Villa tonight in the Carling Cup quarter finals and new Pompey boss Avram Grant will look for his first win as manager of the club. Grant succeeded Paul Hart after a poor run of form left tonight`s hosts rooted to the bottom of the Premier League table with a pathetic seven points from fourteen games. Going into tonight`s match they have lost their last three, most recently going down 4-1 at home to Manchester United. Villa aren`t in great shape either with only one win in their last seven.

Aston Villa go into the game as favourites, priced at 6/5 (bet $50 to win $60 profit), leaving Portsmouth as home underdogs at 13/5. The draw is priced at 12/5, and Aston Villa have drawn five of their last seven games, including their last two.

The bookmakers see the teams as being fairly evenly matched and have made a 1-1 draw the most likely score for tonight`s game at 6/1, which seems very interesting as all of Villa`s five draws in their previous seven games have been 1-1. 1-0 to Villa is 7/1 and 1-0 to Pompey is 9/1. A repeat of the 2-0 win for Villa earlier in the season at Villa Park is priced at 10/1, with 0-0 at 9/1.

Villa and England striker Gabriel Agbonlahor is favourite to open the scoring tonight at 6/1, slightly ahead of his club and international team-mate Emile Heskey at 7/1. Norwegian forward John Carew is at the same price. Pompey`s best chance to score the first goal of the match comes in the form of Ivorian striker Aruna Dindane, who is 8/1 to do the honours, the same price as French strike partner Frederic Piquionne.

The visitors are 11/4 to be winning at both half-time and full-time and 9/2 to win after drawing at half-time. Both halves to be drawn is at the same price and Portsmouth/Portsmouth is at 6/1, with draw/Portsmouth at 7/1. Portsmouth to stage a comeback and win at full-time after falling behind at the interval is 40/1.

Neither side is among the favourites to win the Carling Cup this year but Villa are seen as much more likely, priced at 9/1 while Portsmouth are 25/1.

Portsmouth vs Aston Villa betting odds

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