Southampton v Aston Villa: Bent to finally get off the mark

Darren Bent has endured a quiet and frustrating start to the season in front of goal, but he can open his Premier League account for the campaign in an Aston Villa win over basement boys Southampton.

Bent is 6/4 to find the target at any point in the 90 minutes against a Southampton side that have been shipping goals for fun in their opening four fixtures.

Southampton have conceded 14 goals in these encounters and Nigel Adkins’ failure to appropriately strengthen his defence in the close season is already showing signs of being a poor decision.

Granted they have played Manchester City, Manchester United and Arsenal in this stretch, but Villa have shown signs of becoming a greater attacking force in their last two fixtures.

Villa’s most recent away form is woeful, as they have gone ten trips on the road without success and netting just a combined four goals in the process.

However, 8/5 seems a big price for a Villa success given the way they performed against Newcastle and Swansea.

Bent is 5/1 to open the scoring at St Mary’s and the fact that he has passed on the captain’s armband to Ron Vlaar is a boost to this occurring as he can enhance his focus on finding the scoresheet.

Alternatively, the wincast of Villa winning and Bent scoring is available at 3/1.

Only three times in history has a team lost their first five fixtures of a Premier League season and it is 11/5 that Southampton avoid adding to this total by securing a draw.

The Saints are 11/8 to take maximum points, but to do so they will have to quickly stop the rot of throwing away points from winning positions.

It is 10/1 that Aston Villa recover from a losing position to secure victory.

All Odds and Markets are correct as of the date of publishing

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