Can Bournemouth win at Aston Villa?

Written by billythekid

After a very good performance at home at Dean Court against Manchester United where AFCB deserved all three points, but had to settle for one in a game that ended on a controversial penalty decision which could have given our team all three points and the first double over United in this league. The Cherries next game is a tough away fixture against Aston Villa at Villa Park on Sunday at 3 pm. But we could return with the points.

Aston Villa v AFC Bournemouth

Villa Win

Draw

AFCB Win

The last time our side met Aston Villa was during the time our team had an unbeaten run of seven games, it included six wins and a draw. The draw was the third game of this run and Villa were the visitors to Dean Court. It looked as if the Cherries were going to win, but Ollie Watkins scored a 90th-minute equaliser. After 14 games AFCB were in 16th position with 13 points and Villa in 4th place with 29 points.

Going into this game AFCB after 32 games are in 13th position on 42 points and Villa after 33 games in 4th with 63 points. Unai Emery’s side have already passed their 61 points total last season when they finished 7th in the table. They are having their best season since coming back into the Premier League in 2019-20 season after being relegated in 2015-16, the first season the Cherries entered the Premier League.

Since our game against Aston Villa, at home, they have beaten two of the title-chasing sides Manchester City and Arsenal 1-0. Burnley 3-2, Nottingham Forest 4-2 and Wolves 2-0. They have drawn 1-1 with Sheffield United and 3-3 against Brentford. They have lost three games, 1-3 against Newcastle United, 1-2 against Manchester United and suffered their heaviest defeat at home against Spurs 0-4. Away from home they have W 5, D 2, L 2.

Our last visit to Villa Park was in March last season where we lost 3-0. The goal scorers that day for Villa were Douglas Luiz, Jacob Ramsey and Emi Buendia.

In our away league games against Aston Villa, AFCB have W2, D1, L2.
In all competitions, AFCB have W 5, D 2, L 5.

Aston Villa Team News
Douglas Luiz is suspended. Boubacar Kamara, Jacob Ramsey, Tyrone Mings, Emiliano Buendia have all been out with injuries.

Aston Villa Player To Watch
Ollie Watkins scored his 19th league goal of the season away against Arsenal. Had about three ‘sniffs’ of the goal, hit the inside of the post and scored an opportunist goal in his side’s 0-2 win. Leading scorer for Villa with 19 goals and none from the penalty spot also leads with 10 assists.

AFCB Team News
Luis Sinisterra who was a surprise return in our starting lineup against Manchester United after being out injured and not expected back so soon, had to come off with what looked like a return of the injury. Otherwise as known.

AFCB Player To Watch
Up front our main supplier of goals in the league has been Dominic Solanke with 17 goals, Antoine Semenyo is next with 7, and Justin Kluivert with 6. Lewis Cook and Ryan Christie will be important in winning midfield and our defence in keeping Ollie Watkins quiet and stopping the supply of opportunities to him.

The Referee
Tim Robinson will be in charge for the fourth game this season involving the Cherries. His previous three games were all against London clubs. Home against Spurs and Fulham and away against West Ham. So far in 27 games no red cards issued.

Matt Stevenson added

I feel more positive having looked at the stats of Villa over the last 4 games. Their 7-point return looks like a big outlier.

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I’ve looked at the last 4 league games for A Villa. These were home games against Wolves and Brentford and away games at Man City and Arsenal. A Villa gained 7 points although they had lower xGs in all 4 games and 1 or 2 points may have been more representative. A Villa have scored 8 goals and conceded 7 with xG estimating 4.20 goals with 8.15 conceded.

A Villa have had 5 different goal scorers with Watkins having scored 3. Tielemans has 2 assists, and five other players have 1 assist each.

The average positions of the starting line-ups are below. In all games bar Brentford, Villa tried to soak up pressure and counter. This seems understandable away at the top 2, but surprising against a Wolves team that also likes to counter. With Villa also playing a potentially tough game against Lille on the Thursday before, how they line up will be uncertain.

The following graph compares summary stats of A Villa and AFCB over the last 4 games. The key difference is that A Villa have conceded more changes, more big chances and have a higher xGc. Admittedly 2 of the 4 games were tough, but they were still expected to conced about 1.5 goals vs both Brentford and Wolves.

Average possession I similar between the teams A Villa have an extremely low relative number of chances from open play (below 60%) whereas most teams are near to AFCB’s value. I hadn’t realised the reliance of Villa on set pieces.