Unai Emery’s Aston Villa meet Everton at Villa Park as both teams look to bounce back from opening defeats.
Victory would see Villa leapfrog Everton and climb out of the relegation zone, whilst Sean Dyche’s Toffees can climb into the top ten with a win.
Team News
Tyrone Mings is ruled out for Aston Villa after he suffered a serious knee injury during their 5-1 loss to Newcastle last weekend.
Leon Bailey is a doubt with a back injury and faces a late fitness test.
Alex Moreno (hamstring), Leander Dendoncker, Bertrand Traore (muscle), Tim Iroegbunam, Jhon Duran (both unspecified), Emiliano Buendia (ACL) and Jacob Ramsey (foot) are all ruled out.
Everton could welcome Dominic Calvert-Lewin back into contention after he missed their loss to Fulham with fitness issues.
Jack Harrison (hip), Dele Alli (hip), Dwight McNeil (ankle) and Seamus Coleman (knee) are ruled out.
When is Kick-Off?
Villa host Everton at Villa Park in a 2pm BST kick-off on Sunday 20 August, live on Sky Sports in the UK.
Stat Attack
- Aston Villa are unbeaten in their last eight meetings against Everton (W6, D2).
- Everton have won one of their last six visits to Villa (W1, D1, L4).
- Villa’s Emiliano Buendia scored in both meetings against Everton last season (W2).
- Douglas Luiz has scored in each of Villa’s last two home matches (W2).
- Everton are unbeaten in six of their last seven away matches (W1, D5, L1).
Prediction
After a disastrous opening defeat at Newcastle, Villa must now reset and treat this as a fresh start because their defence were unable to live with the Magpies’ intensity, press and movement throughout in a shocking display by their standards.
Emery also will be worried by how Villa wasted chances throughout whenever they got on the attack aside from Moussa Diaby’s equalising goal, which should of sparked them into life yet their defence proved their downfall with some awful defending.
Everton meanwhile have their own attacking issues because although they did play well against Fulham, they just lacked accuracy and patience in their end product whilst their defence were undone by a sloppy loss of focus.
Now if both teams play here like they did last weekend, I would fancy Everton to take the win if they sort out their end product but Villa should be motivated to deliver a reaction, which could well swing the result their way if can tighten up and ignite their attacking spark.
A draw however is my instinct because both teams will want to show more defensive quality but Everton might be difficult to break down, which could cause Villa some issues if they do make that improvement across the pitch on last week’s disaster.
Prediction: Aston Villa 1-1 Everton
Result: Aston Villa 4-0 Everton
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