Bournemouth vs Aston Villa: Quick Hits
- Aston Villa are predicted to pick up an away victory on Sunday, winning 48.2% of the Opta supercomputer’s 10,000 simulations ahead of Matchday 14.
- Unai Emery has won both of his previous meetings with Andoni Iraola, his Villarreal side winning home (2-0) and away (5-1) games against Rayo Vallecano in the 2021-22 LaLiga campaign.
- Bournemouth have won three of their last four Premier League games, having been winless in 13 before this.
Match Preview
Aston Villa head to the Vitality Stadium to take on Bournemouth on Sunday eyeing a win to put further pressure on the Premier League’s leading sides.
Villa’s 2-1 win at Tottenham last weekend moved them up to fourth in the league table, leaving them just two points behind leaders Arsenal having suffered defeat just once in their last nine league games, winning seven of those outings.
Ollie Watkins scored the decisive goal against Spurs, and the striker has now been involved in 10 goals in his last eight Premier League games (seven goals, three assists). Overall, he’s been involved in more goals than any other English player in the division this season (12 – seven goals, five assists).
Watkins’ form has been crucial to Unai Emery’s brilliant record at Aston Villa. Since the weekend of his first Premier League game in charge, only Manchester City (89), Arsenal (83) and Liverpool (79) have won more points than Villa (77), while the Spaniard has the best win rate (63.2%) and highest points-per-game average (2.0) of any permanent manager in the club’s Premier League history.
Only Man City (26) have won more Premier League games in 2023 than Villa, with their 22 wins twice as many as they managed in 2022 (11). Villa last won more league outings in a single calendar year as a top-flight club in 1931 (24), a number Emery will be targeting to help his team’s bid to finish in the top four come the end of the season.
Heading into MD14, only City (33) have scored more Premier League goals than Emery’s side (31) this term, and their rate of 2.4 goals per game is their highest across a league season since 1931-32 (2.48).
However, Villa’s fixture this weekend pits them against a Bournemouth side going through a purple patch of their own, winning three of their last four Premier League outings to put seven points between them and the bottom three, giving their chances of survival a very welcome boost.
Bournemouth’s 3-1 win at Sheffield United last time out means the Cherries go into the weekend game with the opportunity to win three matches in a row in the same Premier League season for the first time since 2016.
Their upturn in form has been in spite of their set-piece abilities, however, with Bournemouth scoring the fewest (one) and conceding the most (10) goals from dead-ball situations in the Premier League this season including penalties, something Villa will look to take advantage of on Sunday.
Bournemouth’s strong recent run has also made light of injuries, with Tyler Adams, Max Aarons and Alex Scott not expected back until 2024, while Ryan Fredericks and Emiliano Marcondes are not yet ready to return to the lineup. Lloyd Kelly went off at half-time against Sheffield United and is a doubt for Sunday’s kick-off.
For Emery, Emiliano Buendía and Tyrone Mings remain long-term absentees, while Bertrand Traoré is also unavailable. Boubacar Kamara is suspended after picking up his fifth yellow card of the season against Spurs, though Nicolò Zaniolo should play some part having missed last weekend’s away triumph with a knock he sustained on international duty with Italy.
Bournemouth vs Aston Villa Head-to-Head
Bournemouth have won four of their six (67%) Premier League meetings with Villa (two defeats), only having a higher win rate against Huddersfield (75%) in the competition.
But after losing four consecutive league games against Bournemouth between 2016 and 2022, Villa won the most recent meeting 3-0 in March.
Douglas Luiz, Jacob Ramsey and Buendía were the scorers that day, the second win in an ongoing run of 13 straight home league victories, their longest such streak in the top-flight since October 1983.
Recent Form
Bournemouth’s only league defeat in their last four matches came away at Man City, though even in that heavy 6-1 defeat, Andoni Iraola’s men managed to find the back of the net, heading into this weekend’s game with at least one goal in their last five league games.
Villa’s win at Spurs was just their third Premier League away victory since early April. This season, they have won all six home games, therefore averaging 3.0 points per match at Villa Park; on the road, however, they are averaging just 1.43 points per game, something Emery will be keen for his team to improve on in their pursuit of Champions League qualification.
This is the latest into a season Villa are playing a Premier League game while in the top four of the table since December 2009, suffering a 3-0 defeat at Arsenal in their 19th match of the campaign.
Opta Power Rankings
The Opta Power Rankings are a global team ranking system that assigns an ability score to over 13,000 domestic football teams on a scale between zero and 100, where zero is the worst-ranked team in the world and 100 is the best team in the world.
Ahead of kick-off on Sunday, here is the Opta Power Ranking for both sides.
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