Aston Villa v Nottingham Forest: Prediction, tips and bet builder as Villans keep European bid on track

Both Aston Villa and Nottingham Forest arrive here knackered from FA Cup and midweek action, but importantly with victories in their pockets.

Forest poured more cement into third-place in the Premier League after beating Manchester United on Tuesday night, which kept them five points above Chelsea in the table.

Arsenal in second, four points above, are certainly in Forest’s sights and they won’t be taking their pedal off the accelerator to try and chase them down.

Meanwhile, Aston Villa’s 3-0 away win at Brighton fired them up the table to seventh, within touching distance of Newcastle, Man City and the aforementioned Chelsea in the table.

Villa are in more need of the points than Forest and in the better form. On top of that, they may remember the manner of their defeat at the City Ground, where they led 1-0 until the 87th minute before collapsing and losing 2-1. Revenge could be in the offing.

Good luck and please gamble responsibly.

(All odds are correct at the time of article publication)

Aston Villa vs Nottingham Forest bet builder:

Aston Villa to win

Over 2.5 goals

Rashford to score or assist

Asensio to score or assist

Over 8.5 corners

 

Aston Villa to win

We can’t see past Villa in this one, as they are on a six-game unbeaten run and only Arsenal, in the Premier League and Crystal Palace in the Carabao Cup have come away with a victory at Villa Park this season.

Forest have lost three of their last four on their travels in the league, and also have a few crucial injury issues with Chris Wood and Ola Aina missing, while Callum Hudson-Odoi could be absent again for personal reasons.

Before drawing 0-0 with Brighton in the FA Cup, Forest had leaked 15 goals in five matches on the road. That’s not the sort of form you want going up against a Villa side that scored four goals in last year’s fixture.

 

Over 2.5 goals

There have been over 2.5 goals in eight of Forest’s last 10 away matches, with at least one team scoring two or more goals.

Villa have banged in three goals in their four of their last five games, and certainly won’t be cagey in coming forward, they need the points.

 

Rashford to score or assist

Marcus Rashford has found his groove since joining Aston Villa on loan. He built on an FA Cup brace with his first Premier League goal for the Villans midweek.

He may start on the left side if Watkins is fit, but we expect him to feature heavily, regardless of where he plays.

 

Asenio to score or assist

Marco Asensio has hit a rich vein of form in recent weeks with eight goals and an assist for Villa in all competitions since the 2-1 win over Chelsea in late February.

He didn’t start the midweek win over Brighton, but still came off the bench to score the second and set up Donyell Malen’s third.

Depending on Unai Emery’s rotation ahead of Wednesday’s clash with PSG in the Champions League, he’s likely to start against Forest.

 

Over 8.5 corners

Forest prefer the counter-attack and that helps the corner count tick up, usually for the opposition as they sit back waiting to pounce.

The midweek win over United had 13 corners, as did the FA Cup win over Brighton. There were nine against Ipswich in the 4-2 away win the game before.

Maybe over 8.5 corners is too conservative?

 

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