Aston Villa vs Liverpool Predictions
| Aston Villa Odds | +270 |
| Liverpool Odds | -134 |
| Draw | +375 |
| Over / Under | 3.5 -125o /+100u |
Aston Villa will try to lock up their first top-four finish since 1996 when they host a Liverpool side playing two days after they were mathematically eliminated from league title contention.
Villa enter their home finale with a four-point lead on fifth-place Tottenham, with each side having two games to play following Spurs’ win over Burnley on Saturday.
Earlier that day, Manchester City’s 4-0 win at Fulham officially ended Jurgen Klopp’s hopes of a second league title to close his managerial reign for Liverpool.
Liverpool earned a 3-0 win in the previous league meeting at Anfield, one of six wins without defeat in these sides’ last seven matches in all competitions.
Let's dive into Aston Villa vs Liverpool.
Aston Villa
As close as Villa may be to their first berth in Europe’s top club tournament since the 1980s, they also find themselves at arguably their toughest moment of the season following their surprising defeat in the UEFA Europa Conference League semifinals.
Unai Emery’s Villains have lost three straight in all competitions for the first time — twice to Olympiacos in their two-leg semi and once in a league fixture at Brighton in between.
Ollie Watkins scored in the first leg — a 4-2 home defeat — but has gone three league matches without finding the net. And perhaps the burden of playing nearly every minute of the Villains’ recent high-leverage matches took a toll against Brighton, the first league game in which he failed to register a shot since a 3-2 defeat at Manchester United on Boxing Day.
Yet he’s likely to feature again for a side that could be encountering an injury wave similar to what Newcastle United faced at the end of 2023. He leads all Villa players in league minutes with just over 3,000, a true rarity for any attacking player, let alone a No. 9.
While Villa have won two-thirds of their home fixtures, that success is stacked toward the first half of the campaign. Only three of their 12 league victories have come in 2024, and they’ve failed to win four of five at home in the new year against teams in the top half of the table.
Liverpool
In the autopsy of Liverpool’s failed title bid, one way the Reds were unable to match what the performances of Manchester City and Arsenal is their inability to distance themselves from opponents on the road.
Of their 18 away matches coming into this away finale at Villa, the outcome was decided by one or zero goals on 10 occasions. And perhaps it was just the stress of those repeated close contests caught up to Klopp’s squad when they lost at Everton and drew at West Ham in their last two away fixtures to end any realistic title hopes.
And even earlier than that, the Reds encountered difficulty earning three points when visiting the league’s better opponents. Entering Monday’s match, Liverpool have two wins in eight away matches against the teams currently in the top half of the table. They beat Newcastle 2-1 at St. James Park back in August and Bournemouth 4-0 at the Vitality Stadium in January.
Despite all that, their chance creation on their travels has arguably improved as the season progressed.
Liverpool generated 1.5 or more expected goals in six of their eight away league fixtures since Boxing Day. They created a total of 16.9 xG over that span and scored 19 times.
Aston Villa vs Liverpool
Prediction
It’s hard to back either side here based on Villa’s recent form and fixture congestion and Liverpool’s continued struggles as an away side.
So perhaps it’s best to look elsewhere for a trend to back. And when you control for the venue and the quality of opponent, there’s one that becomes clear. Both teams are likely to score, but neither are likely to blow the game open.
That makes a same-game parlay tying a yes wager on both teams to score with a total coming in under 4.5 goals particularly appealing. At +130 odds and an implied 43.5% probability, it has cashed in half of Villa’s eight home matches against the top half — including four of the last five — and seven of Liverpool’s eight away against such opponents.
There's probably value at any price above even money.
