After last season, it has to be our turn for three points

The lovely people at Unibet have asked me to write Villa fan previews for our televised matches this season, and we touched on it in a post the other day….we’re just looking for two wins in a row. To get it against the Baggies would make it just that little bit more special.

Team news

Trying to predict a Paul Lambert team is a pretty hard task, because as we’ve seen with the dropping of Given for Guzan, our new manager isn’t afraid of making the big decisions. That said, we’re close to a full strength squad, with only Stephen Ireland looking like he’ll miss out through injury. We finally have real competition for places after Lambert bought well in the summer, and I’d expect a few changes from our great result against Man City in the cup.

Form

It’s never straightforward supporting the Villa, as we have a knack for being maddingly inconsistent. A poor start to the season was followed with two good results against Newcastle and Swansea, meaning fans went into the Southampton game with real hope. Naturally we got tonked and ended up losing 4-1 before going on to beat the league champions 4-2 on their own patch. I hope we don’t see a repeat of last season, when we beat Chelsea away 3-1 before losing to Swansea at home a few days later. All we’re asking for is two wins in a row!

Head-to-head

West Brom finished ahead of us for the first time in years last season, and the Baggies faithful haven’t been shy in letting us know. The home game last season was a controversial affair. Things started swimmingly after an early Darren Bent penalty put us 1-0 up, but Chris Herd was then sent off (almost a year later and I’m still not sure why) and West Brom went on to win 2-1. The away game was a much cagier affair, finishing 0-0, with a last minute wonder save from Shay Given essentially keeping us in the division. Villa fans are desperate for the three points this weekend.

For my three top bets for the match, and a predicted starting eleven, feel free to check out the rest of the article here: Unibet Fan Preview

UTV.