Aston Villa vs Bournemouth Preview: Odds, Tips and Prediction

Villa’s level has been solid for weeks, with a clear pattern to their best football: front-foot pressing, Matty Cash and Lucas Digne high and aggressive, and Ollie Watkins making every possible angled run to open space for more attacks, and possibly find himself on the end of an eye-catching pass. The latter of that being more difficult with Emi Buendia not on the pitch at present. At Anfield, they actually carried early threat through Morgan Rogers, who clipped the post possibly changing the course of the game, Matty Cash forced a big scare for the opposition defence, as he does every week, and the teams overall movement looked sharp, before a stray pass from World Cup winner Emiliano Martinez coupled with an unlucky deflection off Pau Torres which swung the night. Overall, the Villain’s structure is sound, and their focus now should be cleaner decision-making in the first-phase build and a touch more direct service when the mid-block tightens.

Bournemouth’s unbeaten stretch ended at Manchester City, but the display still carried bite, although some might say it was a bit arrogant with an extremely high defensive line against an Erling Haaland Man City. Tyler Adams pounced from a corner after pressure from David Brooks unsettled the keeper, Eli Kroupi threatened repeatedly, and Djordje Petrovic produced strong stops with Alex Jimenez clearing off the line, all to produce a rather disappointing result at the end of the day. 

The frustration was in the details, with an over-committed shape before the opener and Adrien Truffert’s mistimed step for the second, but with all that being said, the framework remains convincing. Lewis Cook and Adams anchor the centre, Ryan Christie and Alex Scott knit attacks, and runners like Marcus Tavernier and Antoine Semenyo stretch high lines.