Aston Villa vs Chelsea Odds
| Aston Villa Odds | +115 |
| Chelsea Odds | +220 |
| Draw | +275 |
| Over / Under | 2.5 -154 / +120 |
Aston Villa and Chelsea meet for an FA Cup replay at Villa Park to decide who goes onto the fifth round.
Villa routed Sheffield United 5-0 over the weekend in a much needed result to get their confidence back. The result put them back inside the top four for the time being and a win here at home to get to the fifth round would be another step in the right direction.
Chelsea are in peril once again after losing to Wolves 4-2 over the weekend. News has come out that there is a lot of turmoil at the club with the player, manager and ownership, and that has definitely trickled down into their performances. They were held goalless by Aston Villa in the previous meeting without looking very threatening inside the final third, so something has to change on Wednesday if they are going to get through to the fifth round.
Read on for my Aston Villa vs Chelsea prediction.
Aston Villa
The way Aston Villa scored their first two goals against Sheffield United are exactly the way they can attack Chelsea in this match. Aston Villa are typically a slow build out of the back style team, but against the Blades they used two quick direct attacks with Ollie Watkins making intelligent runs off the back line to get in for the first two goals of the match.
What Aston Villa did out of possession against Chelsea was very encouraging for a couple of reasons. Unai Emery's defensive principles have always been defending in a condensed 4-4-2 cutting off the space in between the two defensive lines, but playing a high defensive back line to draw the opponent into an offsides position while not allowing them to build through them in the half spaces. The high line has come with criticism and has cost them on numerous occasions.
It would have been particularly bad against Chelsea, because given all of the pacey wingers they have at their disposal, they would have created a ton of chances with balls over the top as they did to Middlesbrough when they beat them 6-1. Instead, Emery decided to play more of a low block to not allow Chelsea to have those balls over the top.
#AstonVilla defending in a low block vs #Chelsea
– Defending the half spaces in behind
– Prioritize +1
– Efficient defensive shiftingMade with @LiveTagPro
pic.twitter.com/7qW9mxzeM6— Modern Football Analyst (@VideosModern) January 27, 2024
Basically all of Chelsea's big chances came off of high turnovers, so Aston Villa will have to be better in build up, but they will be at home, where they've been outstanding this season.
Chelsea
Chelsea are a fantastic lesson in betting football that underlying numbers are not the only thing you should look at. Tactical set ups are incredibly important to how well a team can perform against a specific type of opponent. Under Pochettino Chelsea are a tactically flawed team that has good underlying metrics.
Out of possession, they aren't that bad of a team and their counter-pressing has been excellent because they are near the top of the Premier League in PPDA and high turnovers. The problem is what they are doing in possession, which is actually causing a lot of problems defending in transition. Chelsea are a team that likes to build out of the back, but Pochettino wants them to utilize a 3-1-6 build up shape to overload the last line of the defense. The 3-1-6 is usually only effective if you have a fantastic central midfielder like Frankie De Jong or Rodri to deliver balls effectively up to the last line of defense.
Instead what is happening is Moises Caicedo is being isolated in the midfield and is not goo enough on the ball to penetrate the opposing defense. Enzo Fernandez is their best deep lying playmaker from the midfield position, but he is often times is asked to push up to the last line of defense to be a playmaker, which is not his strong suit.
Because Caicedo has been isolated, when Chelsea do lose the ball he has been tasked with trying to cover too big of a space on the pitch and he has been caught out way too many times, so Chelsea have really struggled defending in transition. Since the beginning of November, Chelsea are allowing 1.92 xG per 90 minutes, which is the fifth-most in the Premier League during that time span.
Aston Villa vs Chelsea
Prediction
It's gotten to the point that Chelsea are so tactically flawed that you have to consider fading them every single week. What they are trying to do in buildup is completely disjointed. They don't have a true striker to get on the end of some of the chances they create, and they are terrible in transition defense when they lose the ball.
Aston Villa are a team that can exploit all of those weakness and the fact that they opted to play a low block instead of their usual high line, showing how tactically adept Unai Emery is as a manger.
Villa have been amazing at Villa Park this season, putting up a +10.7 expected goal differential, while Chelsea have a negative expected goal differential away from Stamford Bridge. So, I like the value on Aston Villa at +115.
