Everton vs Aston Villa: A fit Bent can rob a Villa victory
Published:Everton have had a knack of being involved in games finishing 1-0 of late and with Aston Villa owning a fine record over their hosts in recent seasons, they can shade victory at Goodison Park.
Aston Villa have avoided defeat in their last ten Premier League meetings with Everton and have only been beaten in one of their last 11 top flight games.
It is 14/5 in the Premier League odds that Villa beat Everton and maintain their strong unbeaten start to the current campaign.
Everton have only lost one of their last 12 at home and are 1/1 to claim victory, with a seventh draw in 11 league meetings between the pair priced at 23/10.
And David Moyes has never lost in a Premier League match against Alex McLeish, with the duo having been in opposition on the touchline on five previous occasions.
However, all of Everton’s last four games have ended 1-0 and assuming that Darren Bent overcomes a late fitness test on a groin injury that caused him to miss the England victories over Bulgaria and Wales, he could prove the difference.
Aston Villa’s odds are 8/1 to win 1-0 and the scorecast of this scoreline coupled with Bent scoring may appeal to some punters at 30/1.
Everton may hand a debut to new Argentine striker Denis Stracqualursi in attack, but based on previous results, pushing Tim Cahill into a more advanced role could reap rich rewards.
Cahill has netted six times in ten Premier League appearances against Villa and is 13/8 to find the target within the 90 minutes again.
Elsewhere, Emile Heskey has made a decent start to the season for Villa under McLeish and could be overpriced in the first goalscorer market at 9/1 to break the deadlock.
