Aston Villa’s resistance to wane in second half against Chelsea
Published:The joy of a rousing 4-1 win over Norwich will be short-lived for Aston Villa when Chelsea’s relentless, if not compelling, winning machine roles into the second city for Saturday’s televised teatime kick-off in the Premier League.
Memories of a famous 3-2 win over Manchester City way back in September have long since faded in the minds of the Villa Park faithful, who’ve been subjected to more than their fair share of dross since.
Eight losses from 14 this season represents the third worst home form in the Premier League and is probably reason enough to side with the 1/2 on another three points for the league leaders rather than the 6/1 on Villa or even the 3/1 compromise about the draw.
But there are worse statistical pointers weighing against the Villans, as seven of those eight losses arrived against opponents residing above the fold in the league standings.
When the big guns come to town, Villa tend to roll over like the family Labrador in anticipation of a jolly good tummy-tickling.
With the match bet banked, it’s probably worth looking at some other markets surrounding the method of victory for Jose Mourinho’s men.
It will not have escaped many people’s attention that Chelsea’s march towards the title of late has owed as much to grinding out results (and Tottenham’s horror show defending) than it has to fluency and finesse.
Particularly slow starters, the Blues haven’t found the net in the first half of any of their last three top-flight exchanges, bringing into serious consideration the 13/10 about more Chelsea goals in the second 45.
Meanwhile, the bumper bet may well be the one which would have landed in all of their last three and also when the teams met at Stamford Bridge.
That’s the 11/4 on draw/away in the half-time/full-time market.
All Odds and Markets are correct as of the date of publishing.
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