Aston Villa v Chelsea

[lippy]

Aston Villa lost both games to Chelsea last season without conceding a goal and the Blues look good value to continue their excellent away record at Villa Park.

Granted, Carlo Ancelotti’s side lost their last road game 3-1 at Wigan Atheltic – one of the shocks of the season – but this has to be seen as just a very rare day off by John Terry and co.

They bounced back with a Didier Drogba inspired 2-0 win over Liverpool and the Londoners’ recent away record has to be taken into context as well.

Since the start of last season, Chelsea have won 17 of their 23 away league games while Martin O’Neill’s Villa side continue to be plagued by their home form.

In O’Neill’s reign, the Villains have actually taken more points away at big four clubs than at home.

The Villa manager has won just 1 of 12 home games against Chelsea, Manchester United, Arsenal and Liverpool, which further underlies that they are much better as a counter-attacking side.

The pace of Gabriel Agbonlahor, Ashley Young and James Milner terrorises defences away from home but in tighter games on home turf, they are far less effective.

In fact, since the start of last season, Villa have won more Premier League points away from home than at Villa Park (37 to 38 points).

Some firms seem to have taken a big risk pricing up Chelsea at 10/11 for this one and that looks super value.

The only concern to backing the Blues would be the International midweek fixtures, as Ancelotti loses more players than most to play for their countries.

But with the season only 8 games old, fatigue shouldn’t really come into it at this stage and it would not detract from me backing Chelsea to make it 8 wins from 9.


PREDICTION : CHELSEA TO WIN