Aston Villa v Norwich: Former club to offer Lambert breathing space

Villa Park has been far from a fortress in the past 12 months, but Norwich are almost the perfect opposition to ensure a somewhat rare home win.

Aston Villa have taken maximum points from just two of their last 16 home games, while losing half of these encounters.

This run simply must be improved and 10/11 is worth backing that Paul Lambert collects a victory over the club he jumped ship from over the summer.

With five points from their opening eight encounters, Lambert will be well aware that this is Villa’s worst ever start to a Premier League season and with a tough set of fixtures on the horizon, this is the sort of game they almost have to win, even if we are still in October.

Norwich have failed to shut out the opposition in their last 37 showdowns on the road, which boosts the chances of a home success, while they are one of only two teams to have already conceded into double figures from their away outings.

Fresh from a victory over Arsenal, Norwich will have no confidence concerns and most of the squad would surely volunteer to crank up the pressure on their former boss.

It is 3/1 that Norwich are the latest team to emerge from Villa Park triumphant and 12/5 that the points are shared.

Christian Benteke started on the bench at Fulham and would be the obvious Villa candidate to score.

He is 5/1 to bag the opener and 6/4 to find the target at any point in the 90 minutes.

Meanwhile, this pair have only scored six goals each this season and so punters may be tempted by the 15/2 on offer for Aston Villa to win 1-0.

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