Aston Villa hosts Sheffield United in round 2 of the English Premier League. The match will be played on Monday, September 21st at Villa Park (Birmingham)
Aston Villa got an acceptable schedule at the start of the season. The first round was postponed, which means there is an extra week for physical training, and the team gained the opportunity to analyze Sheffield's game. The opponents in the second and third rounds are quite modest, but then Villa will have to play against Chelsea and Leicester, and it will be difficult to score points. Since fate has decreed so, the Lions are obliged to embrace the opportunity and show a good start, at least at a distance of two matches, and this will already raise the confidence of the players and improve the atmosphere in the locker room. The Lions need to start with a home victory over modest Sheffield. They finished last season on a positive note. The team avoided relegation to the Championship and had a streak of four consecutive matches without defeats at the finish line. Arsenal and Crystal Palace were beaten at home (1-0 and 2-0), and Vill scored points in away matches against Everton (1-1) and West Ham (1-1). Let’s note that Villa has never conceded more than one goal per game at the end of the season, and the teams have been limited to only two goals in all four cases.
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If Aston Villa ended the season in good shape, the same cannot be said about Sheffield. The team failed to get into the Euro cup zone at the end of the season, as it lost its shape after the quarantine. Since then, the Blades have lost face - the 2020/21 campaign with an unsuccessful visit to Wolverhampton, where the team of the same name made the game in six minutes (2:0). Moreover, the starting defeat led to another failure in the League Cup, where Chris Wilder's men lost to Burnley (1:1) after a penalty shootout. The defeat was extremely offensive, and some important players played more than 120 minutes, so they will need a long time to recover.
In the last Premier League draw, it was not very interesting to watch head-to-head meetings between these teams - the dull 0:0 draw in Birmingham and the home victory of the Blades with a 2:0 score. It looks like there will be a lot of fighting and few obvious goal attempts. However, Sheffield has faded a little, while the Lions have started to play with new colors. I expect a draw or a victory of the hosts in the low-scoring match.
Prediction for the match: Aston Villa to win with +0.5 handicap and Under 3.5 goals scored
