West Ham vs Aston Villa Prediction
| West Ham Odds | +145 |
| Aston Villa Odds | +175 |
| Draw | +260 |
| Over / Under | 2.5 -175 / +137 |
West Ham begin the Julen Lopetegui era at the London Stadium when they host Aston Villa.
West Ham have been busy during the transfer window bringing in a lot of new faces that has made their squad look far superior to the one last season that severely over-performed under David Moyes. It may take some time for Lopetegui to implement his system, but the Hammers have all the makings of challenging for European football.
Aston Villa are coming off a historic season, finishing inside the top four and qualifying for the Champions League. Unai Emery has done a masterful job guiding the club back to prominence. The Villans have been busy as well this summer with a lot of new players coming in and some key players departing, so it will be interesting to see how they come out in this first match.
Here is how I am betting West Ham vs Aston Villa.
West Ham Picks
Things are changing for West Ham and probably for the better. Gone are the days of David Moyes' low block counterattacking football and in comes Julen Lopetegui with his possession-based brand of football. Lopetegui's previous stint at Wolves did not end the way he'd hope, but he did establish Wolves as possession-based team. The issue that he ran into at Wolves was they were not able to do anything with that possession.
Nobody during the 2022-23 Premier League season averaged more defensive penalty box and defensive third touches than Wolves, as they put too much of an emphasis on trying to build out of the back. It translated to them only averaging 0.97 xG per 90 minutes and taking the highest percentage of shots from outside the box of anyone in the Premier League.
West Ham under Moyes held the third-lowest amount of possession last year, so switching from a primarily transition-based team to one that is now going to control possession in the most difficult league in the world is going to take some time. The additions of Niclas Fullkrug, Crysencio Summerville and Max Kilman are all steps in the right direction, but it's down to how quickly Lopetegui can have his tactics be effective.
Aston Villa Picks
Aston Villa have been busy this summer with the clear aim at bringing in depth as they are now in the Champions League. Perhaps their most important player, Douglas Luiz, has moved onto Juventus, but the addition of Amadou Onana from Everton is about as good of a replacement that you can find on the market.
The Villans drastically over-performed their expected metrics last year finishing with 68 points and a +15 goal differential when they only had a +3.2 xGD and 55.4 expected points. So, there is going to be some regression for them this season after that historic top four finish.
Unai Emery's team is going to try and dominate possession and build out of the back, but the question mark for them is without Douglas Luiz can they still be as good as they were last season? West Ham are likely going to play a high defensive block to try and disrupt that build up, so it will be interesting to see how effective they are out of the gates.
Defensively, they are going to play a very compact and narrow 4-4-2 with a high defensive line, which should be really effective against a team that is going to rely on a lot of short passes and likely not going to play many balls in over the top.
West Ham vs Aston Villa
Prediction
With two former Sevilla managers going against each other with both wanting to put a high value on possession and building out of the back, it's going to create a bit of a stalemate here in the opening match.
Both teams are going to have a lot of trouble playing through the oppositions defensive block and it's going to result in a lot of low quality chances. Plus, both goalkeepers in this game finished in the top five last season in Post Shot xG +/-.
Because of how this match sets up tactically, I think there is some value on the under 3.
