Chelsea held on to the top spot in the Premier League standings with a solid draw with rivals Manchester City on Saturday. The league-leaders stand a chance to stretch their advantage even further when they take on an Aston Villa side that have now gone eight league games without a win following their humiliating five-goal defeat to Arsenal over the weekend.
Read on for a complete preview of this Premier League showdown and while you’re at it, you can check out our preview of the Merseyside derby between Liverpool and Everton here.
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Chelsea vs. Aston Villa Betting Preview
Where: Villa Park, Birmingham
When: Saturday, February 7, 10:00 AM ET
Line: Chelsea -400 at Aston Villa +900, tie +375; total 2.5 – view all EPL lines
What’s at Stake
Chelsea can consolidate their advantage at the top of the table against Aston Villa this coming Saturday. Villa can stay clear of the relegation zone by notching at least a point, or even taking all three points with a stunning upset.
Betting on Chelsea
Chelsea maintained their five-point lead over Manchester City at the top of the Premier League table after a gritty 1-1 draw Saturday with the defending champions. Loic Remy opened the scoring with a tap-in effort in the 42nd minute before David Silva equalized shortly thereafter with a close strike of his own.
[sc:Soccer240banner ]It was a disappointing performance from the league leaders, who were totally dominated by Manchester City, especially in the second half. Manchester City controlled 57 percent of the possession against Chelsea.
The Citizens were applying so much pressure late on that Chelsea boss Jose Mourinho decided to send in defender Gary Cahill for Loic Remy in the latter stages to preserve the 1-1 stalemate.
Chelsea fancy their chances against Aston Villa as they totally dominated Paul Lambert’s men in their first league encounter this season. They thrashed Aston Villa 3-0 thanks to goals from Diego Costa, Oscar and Willian. Costa will still be unavailable this coming weekend as he is still serving a three-match ban following his violent conduct against Liverpool in their League Cup clash a week ago.
Costa aside, Chelsea will also suffer the continued absence of Cesc Fabregas. The Spaniard is still a doubt for Chelsea’s clash with Aston Villa after suffering a hamstring injury against the Reds. Fabregas is a vital cog in the Chelsea midfield, dishing out a whopping 15 assists this season, the best mark in the Premier League.
Fortunately for Mourinho, help is on the way. Chelsea spent big once again this past transfer market, signing Fiorentina winger Juan Cuadrado for 26 million pounds. Cuadrado has a total of 37 international caps and led Colombia to the quarterfinals of the 2014 World Cup. His four assists in last year’s World Cup was the best mark in the tournament.
Aston Villa’s problems just keep on mounting after they suffered an embarrassing 5-0 defeat to Arsenal this past weekend. It was Aston Villa’s fifth defeat in their last eight games as they crashed down to 16th place in the league table with 22 points, just three points clear of the relegation zone.
It won’t get any easier for Paul Lambert’s men as standing in their way on Saturday. The Blues have an excellent away record this season, grabbing 22 points out of a possible 36, good for second-best in the Premier League.
Aston Villa, however, will take heart in the fact that they defeated the Blues the last time they visited Villa Park. Aston Villa recorded a memorable 1-0 victory over Chelsea last March that all but sealed Chelsea’s fate in the title race last season.
If they are to pull off the same feat this year, Aston Villa need to improve on their play on the offensive end. They have now gone six Premier league games without a goal, a little more than 10 hours.
It doesn’t help that Aston Villa has the worst home scoring record in the Premier League this season. Villa have scored just seven goals in their 11 home games thus far.
