Thursday and Friday FA Cup tips and predictions: Chelsea slip up vs Villa, Bournemouth and Swansea entertain

Planet Sport has run the rule over Friday night’s FA Cup clashes and picked out two nicely priced bets to, hopefully, help set you up for the weekend.

 

Suggested bets

Aston Villa to beat Chelsea

Swansea vs Bournemouth: Over 3.5 goals

 

AFC Bournemouth vs Swansea City (Thurs 1945)

Andoni Iraola’s side will be keen to give a response after being thumped 4-0 by Liverpool last time out and they’ve been given the perfect opponent to do so.

Swansea are one of the Championship’s entertainers. They’ve played out a pair of 2-2 draws with Birmingham and Coventry since losing 5-0 at Southampton.

Before that, they took the lead inside 10 minutes against Leeds and Ipswich but went on to concede three and lose end-to-end games.

Bournemouth will be more than capable of exploiting the spaces the Swans leave but equally, we’d be surprised if the visitors didn’t get a goal themselves.

There have been over 3.5 goals in seven of Swansea’s Championship away games and at least three goals in six of Bournemouth’s previous seven at home.

 

Chelsea vs Aston Villa (Fri 1945)

There’s no logic to making Chelsea play their FA Cup match against Aston Villa three days after their Carabao Cup semi-final against Middlesbrough.

Both of these teams have had their feet up for the past 10 days at least, but Unai Emery's team had the full week to focus on their approach to this game.

This game is priced close to how we’d expect it to be priced, so in our opinion, the bookmakers have failed to take into account the fallout from such a big occasion.

It wouldn’t matter if Mauricio Pochettino's side had faced a League Two team in their semi-final because it’s still a big moment for the club after some rocky seasons.

We think they could come out a little bit flat, despite thumping Boro, against a team that won 1-0 at Stamford Bridge early in the season and knows how to frustrate.