Aston Villa v Swansea: Poor form points to draw at Villa Park

Aston Villa’s recent form in the Premier League may not make pleasant Christmas reading for the Villa Park faithful but the visit of Swansea could provide some much needed festive cheer for Paul Lambert’s squad.

Despite only two wins at home all season and a disastrous 1-0 defeat to Crystal Pallace on Boxing Day, the Villans have an excellent record against the Swans, winning 12 of the 18 games the two sides have contested in English league football.

Most recently, Matthew Lowton and Christian Benteke fired Villa to a 2-0 home win in September 2012 and the West Midlands club are 6/4 for another victory over Michael Laudrup’s side.

The Welsh side have not been in great form themselves in recent weeks, slipping down to 11th in the Premier League table after a 1-0 defeat to Jose Mourinho’s Chelsea on Thursday.

Despite their poor record against the Birmingham side, Swansea also have good memories of Villa Park from 2012.

The Liberty Stadium outfit, in their first season back in the English topflight, produced a 2-0 win thanks to strikes from Nathan Dyer and Wayne Routledge and it is 9/5 with Ladbrokes for Laudrup’s men to repeat that victory in Birmingham.

But with wins thin on the ground for both sides it might be worth looking at the draw – a result which has occurred twice in the last four meetings between the sides – priced at 9/4.

A repeat of last January’s 2-2 draw can be backed  at 14/1 with Ladbrokes, but with both defences looking suspect and conceding freely in the past few weeks, looking at the match result and both teams to score market could be beneficial.

With both teams to find the net in the match, Aston Villa are 21/5 for victory, while Swansea are 19/4 for the three points.

But once again it is the draw which is appealing and with both teams to score the stalemate is priced at 3/1.

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

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