Aston Villa vs Fulham Odds
| Aston Villa Odds | -175 |
| Fulham Odds | +450 |
| Draw | +320 |
| Over / Under | 2.5 -150/+115 |
Aston Villa's unbeaten streak in all competitions came to an end at the City Ground last weekend in a 2-0 defeat to Nottingham Forest. The Villans returned home to beat AZ Alkmaar on Thursday in the Europa Conference League and will now host Fulham on Sunday before the international break.
Unai Emery's side has been quite high variance in terms of their consistency from week-to-week. They have three losses in the league by multiple goals (Newcastle, Liverpool and Forest), but entered Matchweek 12 in fifth place, higher than most would have predicted them to be at this point in the season.
Villa has considerable advantages over Fulham in terms of talent and attacking quality and is a full goal favorite as a result. My projections are in the line with the three-way moneyline and spread prices, but the total is inflated as a result of Villa's early surge in attacking production and the market's overvaluation of the quality of the visitors' attack.
Aston Villa
Manchester City is the only team in the Premier League outperforming their xG numbers more than Aston Villa. Given that Ollie Watkins, their primary shot getter, has been a consistent goals = xG finisher for his whole career, it's fair to expect some attacking regression from Villa. It hasn't been Watkins who has over performed this year — he has five goals from 5.2 xG — but everyone around him. Douglas Luiz, Leon Bailey and Moussa Diaby have all finished at unsustainable rates.
Villa have done a good job of creating quality chances overall as they rank fifth in both lowest average shot distance and in non-penalty xG per shot.
Compare this to Fulham, who ranks third to last in average shot distance. Villa uses crosses more than every team in the league except Luton Town to get into the penalty area. They slowly cycle possession through wide areas to create crossing opportunities, but that's a real strength of the Fulham defense. The Cottagers are above average at stopping crosses.
Fulham
Fulham manager Marco Silva finally recognized his striker problem and benched Raúl Jiménez in favor of the younger Rodrigo Muniz last weekend. Even though the Cottagers faced one of the worst defenses in the league, they still managed just one expected goal. Muniz has managed four shots in his first 1.5 90s, which is an improvement over Jimenez, but still not enough to turn Fulham into a league-average attack.
The Cottagers played poor defensively last year and made it work by outscoring enough opponents through Aleksandar Mitrovic's goal production. Without him, there’s no real top striker and shot getter on the club. The market is still treating this Fulham side like the dominant Championship squad of two years ago, or even the wide open squad from last year’s Premier League campaign. The reality is that the Cottagers are considerably lower event this season. The total against Spurs closed at three and comfortably went under. The United total was three and despite lots of transition, there wasn’t enough attacking quality to warrant that price.
Only Burnley and Sheffield United have produced fewer expected goals this year and the Fulham defense has improved out of necessity from league worst last year into a closer to league average unit this year. There's some encouraging signals for the Cottagers defense as they rank eighth in xG per set piece allowed, seventh in shots allowed and do a solid job of stopping the ball from consistently getting into their penalty area. The Cottagers still concede a lot of big scoring chances based on the system and center back talent, but the overall volume of chances allowed has been tamed a bit.
Aston Villa vs Fulham
Prediction
The market has been slow to catch onto how Fulham is playing this year. Six of their past seven matches have gone under the closing total and the expected goals created and allowed numbers fully supported those results.
When the Cottagers face top top teams, the defense can't really withstand the constant box pressure. Villa isn't that, and this total remains too inflated as a result.
I’d bet under 2.75 at -120 or better, or bet under 2.5 at +105 or better.
Pick: Under 2.75 (-110)
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