Sports Blog 02/02/2016: Match Preview – West Ham vs Aston Villa, Tuesday 2nd February 2016

It’s the battle of claret and blue this Tuesday evening, as Aston Villa travel to east London to face West Ham at 7.45pm on BT Sport 1.

Despite Remi Garde nabbing 2 wins the space of a week in mid-January (the first the Frenchman has managed since taking the reins at the struggling club) Aston Villa remain firmly entrenched at the bottom of the Premier League, 6 points adrift of Sunderland. Villa actually played their first game of the year against the Black Cats, a potential 6 pointer that could have been something of a turning point. Instead they suffered a 3-1 defeat, a stark illustration of, even when playing similarly relegation-facing sides, just how bad the Midlands side are.

Yet, to be fair, Aston Villa are in the midst of what passes as good form at Villa Park these days. Garde’s first win finally came against Crystal Palace, a 1-0 victory courtesy of a goal from Joleon Lescott, and this was soon followed by draws against league leaders and Leicester and rivals West Brom. Things were even looking OK in the FA Cup, Villa winning their 3rd round tie against Wycombe 2-0. However Garde’s gormless side were back in familiar last weekend, crashing out of the cup following a 4-0 thrashing at the hands of Manchester City. Matters are in no way helped by the fact that Villa are in abject form going forwards, scoring a measly 18 goals in the league, Jordan Ayew (at a Super Mega PGM of16-20and Rudy Gestede (Super Mega PGM of 13-17) managing a paltry 9 goals between them in all competitions.



Things couldn’t be much different for the Premier League’s other claret and blue club. Sitting in 6th place, 1 behind Manchester United and 2 ahead of Liverpool, West Ham have only lost once in their last 12 games. Granted 7 of those have been draws (6 in the league and 1 against Liverpool in the FA Cup 4th round); however, combine that with victories over Southampton, Liverpool and Bournemouth (in the league) and Wolves (in the cup) and you have the kind of form that, in this frankly ridiculous season, is good enough for the Hammers to be pushing for a place in Europe.

On top of that, what they lack in one out and out star striker they make up in a cabal of consistent scorers; Dimitri Payet (at a Super Mega PGM of 20-24) leads the pack on 6 goals, with Mauro Zarate, Enner Valencia, Diafra Sakho and Manuel Lanzini all on 5 goals apiece (in all competitions), and the likes of Andy Carroll and Nikica Jelavic increasingly persistent threats as well.

It’s not exactly hard to separate these two sides at this point in the season, and the Hammers will feel aggrieved if they come away from Tuesday night with anything but a win. Our Spreadex traders seem to think so, at least, offering a West Ham/Aston Villa Goal Supremacy spread of 0.5-0.7 alongside a Total Goals spread of 2.3-2.5.

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