Aston Villa vs Newcastle Odds
| Aston Villa Odds | -118 |
| Newcastle Odds | +275 |
| Draw | +300 |
| Over / Under | 2.5 -188 / +140 |
Newcastle looks to stop the bleeding when they travel to Birmingham to take on Aston Villa.
Aston Villa have been in a weird run of form lately and a lot of people are questioning their legitimacy as a top-four candidate. They needed a late goal to draw with Sheffield United at home, blew at two-goal lead at Manchester United and played sleepy 0-0 draws with Everton and Chelsea. The rest of the pack is going to challenge them over the second half of the season, so spots like these are crucial for Aston Villa to pick up three points and widen the gap.
Newcastle is in peril — at least in the Premier League — because they have lost three straight and five of their past six, which has effectively ended their hopes of challenging for the top four. There have been some tactical changes from Eddie Howe that have Newcastle playing a little different than they normally do, but it's not working and there doesn't seem to be a solution.
Read on for my Aston Villa vs Newcastle pick.
Aston Villa
Aston Villa basically only plays out of the back unless they are playing the elite of the elite pressing teams. They have had struggles building out of the back, which has led to a lot of easy transition moments for their opponents, but they are a really good build up team, which is the main reason why they are sitting inside the top four.
Typically, Aston Villa will build up in a 3-2-5, pushing their leftback up to the front line to try and both overload the last line of defense and to create chances via crosses. Unai Emery's side has completed the seventh-most crosses into the penalty area, which is a good advantage for Aston Villa, but their best method of attack is going to be through the middle. Since they are in the top four, a lot of teams are starting to play more passive against them, which has allowed Aston Villa time and space on the ball, which they have taken great advantage of.
So, either we are going to see Aston Villa turn the ball over a lot like in the first meeting with Newcastle when they got five goals put past them, or they are going to be able to build up through Newcastle with relative ease, which means a lot of chances are going to be created.
The home form for Aston Villa has been unreal this season as they've won nine of their 10 matches in the Premier League and have a +12 expected goal differential because they are averaging north of two expected goals per 90 minutes.
Newcastle
Pretty much everybody is playing right through them if they decide to press with their normal 4-3-3, so Howe has switched them to a narrow 4-5-1 out of possession, but there have been a lot of problems with that defensive structure. First off, the striker in this scenario isn't providing much ball pressure, so the opposing centerback has time to pick out whatever pass he wants.
Secondly, since Newcastle are without Joelinton and Sandro Tonali, they are lacking good ball winners and a good physical presence. Then, there is too much space between the two defensive lines. So, when really good build up teams have time and space on the ball, they are able to find that space and create a lot of chances through the middle of the pitch.
Since the beginning of November, Newcastle have allowed the most expected goals in the Premier League.
Newcastle's form away from St. James Park, especially defensively, has been incredibly poor. In 10 away Premier League matches, Newcastle have conceded 23.2 expected goals. Only Fulham and Luton Town have conceded more away from home, showing just how broken this team is defensively when they can't effectively high press and don't have the crowd behind them.
Aston Villa vs Newcastle
Betting Pick & Prediction
This is a matchup that could go one of two ways for Aston Villa. They are going to control a majority of the ball, so we have to focus on what Aston Villa does in possession versus what Newcastle does out of possession. With Newcastle having two different out of possession structures that are totally different from each other, the result is going to either lead to chances created by their high press forcing turnovers, or their passive out of possession structure getting picked apart by Aston Villa's build up.
Outside of creating chances off of high turnovers, Newcastle does have another decent path to scoring in this match and it’s off of set pieces. They scored twice off of corners against Fulham in the FA Cup and are second in the Premier League in xG per set piece, while Aston Villa is last in that category defensively.
I have 3.6 goals projected for this match, so I like the value on Over 3 goals at -112.
