Premier League - Aston Villa v Liverpool Odds and Betting Preview

BIRMINGHAM, ENGLAND

Liverpool travel to Villa Park today to compete against Alex McLeish’s Aston Villa in the Barclays Premier League.  The Reds are favourites to take all three points at 10/11 with Paddy Power. The draw is priced up at 5/2 with bet365 where an unlikely home win for the mid-table side is given at 7/2 with Boylesports.

Aston Villa will be without arguably two of their best players at either end of the pitch. Shay Given is injured whereas Gabby Abonlahor is serving his suspension for picking up five bookings this season. Fabian Delph should be available after missing Villa’s win against Bolton last week. Villa have been pretty run-of-the-mill this season; they occupy tenth place in the league. They still have to play both Chelsea and Arsenal before the end of the year and so a win today would provide some very useful momentum.

Kenny Dalglish has yet to win at Villa Park in five matches. His side lost 1-0 in the final game of last season however his side have transformed since then. Liverpool have only lost once in their last ten league matches and this can probably be put down to the fact that they have the best defensive record in the league. At the other end of the pitch the story is not so sweet. The Reds have hit the woodwork more than any other team with a grand total of 15 close calls. Many believe it is just a matter of time before these near misses turn to goals and Liverpool start to show the class of previous years.

The favourite scoreline is a Liverpool 1-0 win at 5/1 with bet365 closely followed by the 1-1 draw at 6/1 with Victor Chandler. The odds of Villa snatching a 1-0 win are 10/1 with bet365. For those expecting Suarez and co to open up the floodgates scores of 4-0 and 4-1 to Liverpool are priced up at 28/1 and 33/1 respectively both with bet365. In terms of the over/under market under 1.5 goals is at 2/1 with Paddy Power. For optimists expecting a free flowing game over 4 goals is at 6/1 with bet365.

With various vendettas and scores to settle the first Goalscorer market looks very interesting. Stewart Downing is yet to get a goal or an assist this season and who better to score against than your former club? He is priced up at 16/1 with bet365 to be the first name on the scoresheet. Suarez is favourite to break the deadlock at 9/2 with William Hill and his infamously useless strike-partner Andy Carroll is given odds of 6/1 with bet365 to somehow bumble the ball in. With Abonlahor absent Emile Heskey will get the opportunity to score against the club he was a legend at. He is given odds of 12/1 to score first bet365.

Kick off is at 3.00pm today.

 

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