Top-four chasing Aston Villa welcome Fulham to Villa Park in a top-half Premier League clash.
Victory would see Villa climb to fifth in the table, whilst Fulham can stay ninth with a win and move to within three points of Unai Emery’s Villains.
Team News
Goalkeeper, Emiliano Martinez is a doubt for Aston Villa after he was substituted in their 1-1 draw at Brentford due to illness.
Leon Bailey (hamstring), Boubacar Kamara (foot), Philippe Coutinho (muscle), Matty Cash (muscle) and Jed Steer (Achilles) remain absent.
Fulham could welcome Daniel James back into contention after he was ineligible to feature in their win against Leeds last weekend.
Layvin Kurzawa (knee) and Aleksandr Mitrovic (suspension) both remain absent.
When is Kick-Off?
Villa host Fulham in a 7:45pm BST kick-off at Villa Park on Tuesday 25 April, live on BT Sport 2 in UK.
Stat Attack
- Aston Villa have won three of their last five regular-season league meetings against Fulham (W3, L2).
- Fulham have won just one of their last five league visits to Villa’s Villa Park (W1, D1, L3).
- The winning team has scored three goals in each of Villa’s last three meetings against Fulham, of which Villa prevailed twice compared to Fulham’s sole win.
- Villa haven’t conceded in any of their last four home games (W4), during which they’ve scored nine goals.
- Just one of Harry Wilson’s three league goals for Fulham this season has been scored away from home.
Prediction
Although their trip to Brentford was always going to be difficult, Villa will be glad to have snatched a point in a close contest where their end product was fairly wasteful amidst poor marking of Ivan Toney’s goal from Bryan Mbeumo’s cross.
Fulham meanwhile finally are looking back to their best minus Mitrovic with an excellent but clinical all-round performance against Leeds, except for Joao Palhinha’s sloppy own-goal which luckily came when they were 2-0 up but they defended well to get the win.
Other results elsewhere though mean that a top-four finish looks very unlikely for Villa but they just need to keep doing what they’ve done if want fifth, whereas Fulham know that a win here could put them right back in the hunt for Europa League qualification.
With that in mind, I do expect both teams to throw up a competitive contest but Villa’s home form has been excellent lately, which might just be the difference although I can’t see them keeping a clean sheet.
Prediction: Aston Villa 2-1 Fulham
Result: Aston Villa 1-0 Fulham
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