Aston Villa vs Crystal Palace Odds
| Aston Villa Odds | -110 |
| Crystal Palace Odds | +300 |
| Draw | +260 |
| Over / Under | 2.5 -125 / +100 |
Aston Villa look to rebound from their loss to Liverpool before the international break when they host Crystal Palace.
Unai Emery's side have had an up and down start to the Premier League season. They've routed lesser competition, beating Everton and Burnley by a combined score of 7-1, but they have gotten ripped apart by teams ahead of them in Newcastle and Liverpool. This is a good a good test to see how much better Aston Villa are from the middle of the pack and if they are capable of contending for a spot in the top six.
Crystal Palace have taken care of business against lesser competition, getting two wins over Wolves and Sheffield United. Roy Hogdson has one of the more underrated defenses in the Premier League that is very difficult to breakdown. They are seemingly on the same level or maybe one notch below Aston Villa, so this is a great road test for them as well.
Here is my Aston Villa vs Crystal Palace preview.
Aston Villa
You saw the limits of Aston Villa when they are in possession against a team like Liverpool before international break. Emery only wants to play one way. He wants his team to build out of the back. That is great when you are playing against the bottom half of the table or teams who are going to play very passively, but against high intensity pressing teams they have struggled. The injuries to their backline are starting to mount up as well. Tyrone Mings and Diego Carlos are now both out, meaning it will be Pau Torres and Ezri Konsa as the center back pairing. That pairing is fine except Torres is not a great defender, so losing both Carlos and Mings is a big loss for Aston Villa when they are having to defend.
Emery's teams will not press you high. Once they lose the ball they will fall back into their 4-4-2 defensive shape with space between the back two defensive lines extremely condensed. It's not a surprise that the Villans are 19th in PPDA and opponent build up completion percentage allowed. That makes it very difficult for team like Crystal Palace that aren't elite at breaking down low blocks to create high quality chances.
So, that leaves the only option to press Aston Villa high, which plays right into their hands. Non-elite pressing teams like Burnley and Everton tried it and they got ripped apart. We'll see if Crystal Palace try that and if they are effective at turning Villa over in their own third of the pitch.
Crystal Palace
Crystal Palace are a very interesting team because of how they haven't changed with where the rest of the Premier League is going. A lot of the teams in the bottom half of the table have now favored a more high intensity pressing style that has created more high scoring matches. Hodgson, however, has kind of just kept the status quo and made Crystal Palace a blend of a lot of different styles.
The main thing about Crystal Palace is they are rock solid defensively, especially against the middle to lower tier offenses in the Premier League. Dating back to last season, against non-top six offenses Crystal Palace are only allowing 0.96 xG per 90 minutes. So far this season, they are top four in xG allowed having already faced Arsenal and Brentford, who have created the most xG in the Premier League through four matches.
The reason Crystal Palace are so good defensively is because of the continuity in their backline. Joel Ward, Marc Guehi, Joachim Anderson and Tyrick Mitchell have all now been playing together for three seasons and are as solid of a back four as you'll find outside of the Big Six.
The concern for Crystal Palace coming into the season is where are the goals going to come from? So far, Odsonne Édouard has been putting up great production, scoring three goals and having a 0.61 xG per 90 minute scoring rate through four matches.
Aston Villa vs Crystal Palace
Pick & Prediction
This is a very difficult match to handicap because of Crystal Palace. Even though they haven't forced a lot of high turnovers and their PPDA is middle of the pack, they have the third-best opponent build up completion percentage allowed, which is a measure of the percentage of successfully completed passes by the opponent that occur outside of the final third of the field.
So, even though Aston Villa will be able to build out of the back and Crystal Palace are likely not going to press them high, it will be very difficult for Aston Villa to break down the Eagles once they reach the final third. The flip side is even through Crystal Palace have been in good form offensively, they still sit 14th in npxG and are going to have a difficult time finding space in the final third.
I have Both Teams to Score – No projected at -108, so I like the value on the current line of +115.
