Today Premier League will deliver quite a bit of Easter excitement with many tight games to be expected. One of the most exciting ones will take place in Birmingham, where Aston Villa welcomes Newcastle to Villa Park. These are two teams who both display great form curves, and who both are prepared to fight a long way for every point available as the highly desired CL seats are within reach for both. Newcastle still needs to collect points to stay safe in terms of that, Aston Villa definitely needs to add to their 54 points to stay in the run. Aston Villa and Newcastle have not only shown great form curves, but also lots of goals. Looking at statistics, this should be an encounter based on offensive lust with lots of chances and goals to enjoy.
To me, this battle of the north is definitely the match of Game Week 33 that, at least before kick-off, holds the greatest promises of high entertainment value. We have two really strong teams with proven ability to score, we have superstars like Alexander Isak and we have two squads that aren’t too heavily decimated through injuries or suspensions. In fact, Aston Villa comes with a full squad, no injuries, no suspensions. Quite astonishing in itself this far into the season, and with a Champions League journey that ended brutally against PSG earlier this week, on top of all domestic action. Newcastle lacks three players; Hall, Lascelles and Botman through injury, but have a squad strong enough to withstand those losses without too much negative effect. So, what about the promise of a goal rich fight mentioned earlier? Well, looking at statistics there are a lot of things that supports that notion. Aston Villa’s last three Premier League games, and 16 of Newcastle’s last 19 have ended with more than 2,5 goals. Facing each other in Birmingham, 17 of the last 20 games between the two have seen goals from both sides. And finally looking at the last five games for both teams Aston Villa has produced an average of 2,4 goals while Newcastle comes in at an impressive 3,2 average...
Conclusion: So, I have an easy task convincing myself that there will be over 2,5 goals at Villa Park this evening. But the big question is: who will win this fierce battle? Or even, will someone win, or should we be expecting a draw? As I have already successfully gotten away with predicting a draw the last month (Arsenal vs Brentford) I will stay out of that today. I still think a draw could be the outcome of this match, but I also have an even stronger feeling that Newcastle will be the ones celebrating when the final whistle blows at Villa Park. I also have a feeling that Alexander Isak might very well be the deciding factor. So, without any further a due – Let’s nail this down as Over 2,5 goals and Newcastle to win.
