Aston Villa kicked off their Premier League campaign with a 2-0 loss to AFC Bournemouth so they will be itching to pick up their first win of the season when they face Everton.
Everton also lost their opening match but unlike Villa, they suffered a narrow 1-0 defeat at the hands of Thomas Tuchel’s Chelsea(despite missing several big-name players with injuries).
The Toffees did not have the worst of games last weekend so Frank Lampard won’t be too disheartened but Gerrard surely has a lot of work to do right now.
However, Everton have a really pathetic record heading to Villa Park because they have lost 16 of their last 17 away matches in the Premier League. To make things worse, they have not been able to beat Aston Villa in their previous four meetings.
This one should be a pretty evenly matched contest but purely based on what we saw last weekend, the away side goes into this match as the slight favourites while a draw is an equally probable result.
Team news:
Aston Villa:
Kortney Hause is ruled out with a knee injury while defender Tyrone Mings is sweating over a groin injury before the Aston Villa vs Everton game.
The manager has said, as quoted: “He’s missed some training time with an injury, and there’s a niggle in the background as well. We want Tyrone to get back to his best physically, he needs to get rid of the niggle and show on the training pitch that he’s back to his best.”
Mings was an unused sub in gameweek one so even if he is not fit in time, Gerrard won’t be too concerned.
Steven Gerrard now has a lower win percentage at Aston Villa (𝟯𝟰.𝟱%) than Gary Neville achieved during his spell at Valencia (𝟯𝟱.𝟳%) 📉 pic.twitter.com/qkLLVcHxet
— LiveScore (@livescore) August 8, 2022
Everton:
As far as Everton are concerned, they currently have more than half a dozen injuries and most of them are not going to return for this next encounter.
The likes of Dominic Calvert-Lewin and Townsend are long-term absentees while Andre Gomes is also ruled out for a few weeks with a muscle injury.
Yerry Mina and Ben Godfrey both picked up injuries during the Chelsea game and while Godfrey will be out for around three months, Yerry Mina could also be sidelined for a significant amount of time.
Odds:
Aston Villa to win: 1.8
Draw: 3.4
Everton to win: 4.75
Prediction:
Aston Villa 1-1 Everton
Aston Villa predicted line up:
Pickford; Mykolenko, Holgate, Tarkowski, Conor Coady, Patterson; Demarai Gray, Doucoure, Alex Iwobi; McNeil, Gordon.
Everton predicted line up:
Martinez; Lucas Digne, Konsa/Tyrone Mings, Diego Carlos, Matty Cash; Kamara, John McGinn, Jacob Ramsey; Coutinho, Leon Bailey; Ollie Watkins/Ings.
