Luton Town vs Aston Villa Odds
| Luton Town Odds | +360 |
| Aston Villa Odds | -150 |
| Draw | +340 |
| Over / Under | 2.5 -225 / +170 |
Aston Villa look to maintain their spot inside the top four when they travel to take on Luton Town.
Luton Town are in crisis mode. They have lost their last four matches in all competitions and are now four points from safety, desperate to get a positive result. Rob Edwards has had his team set up really aggressively recently, as he's running out of options to keep this team in the Premier League for another. The Hatter have played much better in front of their home crowd at Kenilworth Road, so they will need the crowd behind them to get a result.
Aston Villa are also in a bit of a crisis due to injuries across their back line. They currently have a five point cushion with a game in hand over Tottenham for fourth place in the table, so they will need three points to continue to hold off Spurs. They dominated Luton Town in the previous meeting at Villa Park, which should give them the confidence to get all three points on the road.
Here is my Luton Town vs Aston Villa match preview.
Luton Town
Luton Town are going for it out of possession. Against Manchester City they went man to man marking all over the pitch to try and win duals, cause problems for City in build up and force high turnovers. What it resulted in was Manchester City putting six goals in the back of the net and Haaland consistently getting in behind off the last line of defense to score five goals in less than 60 minutes.
What Luton Town have shown us is they are not afraid to try and press anybody in the Premier League. Over their last two matches they have conceded 10 goals to Liverpool and Manchester City and there is nothing stopping Aston Villa from piling on the goals. Aston Villa have used Watkins as a runner off the back line so many times in recent matches against teams that either want to play a high line or want to go man to man.
There are a lot of problems out of possession for Luton Town at the moment, but they keep scoring goals, so it's hard to argue that Rob Edwards is taking the wrong approach given the squad that he has. The Hatters have been famous this season for their ability to get the ball into wide areas and create chances via crosses. They've been utilizing a back post overload, which nobody really has been able to defend if the service is good.
That back post overload continuing to prove well for Luton. pic.twitter.com/xs6qCp5Dgs
— Tactx (@Tactx_) January 31, 2024
Aston Villa
Unai Emery has tweaked Aston Villa in response to the mounting injuries. They have struggled defending in transition without Konsa, Kamara, and Diego Carlos, but they really haven’t missed a beat in build up.
Here's roughly what we've seen in the last two games.
The Moreno + Ramsey left side is back and functioning very well, if only lacking a little sharpness and execution.
It's very lopsided, which is on purpose, to give Moreno the running room, and therefore Ramsey the space to… pic.twitter.com/GX1X19JbHV
— Sam Tighe (@stighefootball) February 26, 2024
Jacob Ramsey and Moreno played together on the left side towards the end of last season and were pivotal to Aston Villa’s success in build up. Because of any injury to Moreno we haven’t really seen it yet this season. What that does is give Aston Villa a ton of options in build up, especially when they play Tielemans in the midfield and Leon Bailey out wide on the right.
Over their last eight Premier League matches, Aston Villa have been cooking offensively, creating 15.5 expected goals and 13 big scoring chances, and they should be able to have no issues against the worst defense in the Premier League.
What is the one thing Aston Villa has struggled with defensively? Set pieces. They are allowing the highest xG per set piece in the Premier League and conceded a set piece goal in their last match against Nottingham Forest. Crosses and set pieces are basically the only two ways Luton Town creates their chances. They love to overload the back post on corners and will be a problem for Aston Villa to defend in the six yard box since all of their physical presences like Kamara, Carlos and Konsa are out.
Luton Town vs Aston Villa
Prediction
Given the way Luton Town have been playing recently, this total is far too low. If they are going to man mark all over the pitch and press high that is going to cause one of two things to happen. Either they force a bunch of high turnovers and create big chances off of them or Aston Villa are going to play right through them the same Manchester City and Liverpool did. No matter what it's going to be chaos, which is how Luton Town like it.
Luton Town will have a massive advantage in this match on set pieces against the worst set piece defense in the Premier League, who are also without their three most physical defenders in the box, so don't be surprised to see Luton Town score a goal off their patented back post overload.
I have 4.21 goals projected for this match, so I love the value on the over.
