Aston Villa’s Chelsea revenge mission 7/4 to yield over 3.5 goals

An 8-0 Stamford Bridge annihilation on December the 23rd represented the nadir of Aston Villa’s season, not mention ruined their Christmas, but today’s Villa are imbued with far more self belief and revenge will be foremost in their minds as they welcome a Chelsea side playing their fourth game in nine days. Both clubs have a masochistic compulsion to allow their opponents onto the score sheet and over 3.5 goals in the fixture looks the bet at 7/4 with Coral.

Chelsea’s demolition of their hosts in the reverse fixture was the first humiliation of a three game streak of misery over the festive period in which Villa conceded 15 unanswered goals. Luckily for Paul Lambert’s men the New Year proved something of a watershed, with the second city club shut out in just three of 20 outings since January the first. Chelsea have registered in 15 of their 17 league games since the beginning of the year – Coral go 8/15 about both teams to score.

In lovable Belgian youngster Christian Benteke Villa have the striking revelation of the season and as his side have improved creatively his goal-scoring has gone interstellar with the 13 goals he’s notched since the turn of the year the most by any Premier League player in that period.  Benteke is 11/4 to score any time in the fixture.

Rather than any obvious manifestation in terms of fitness the 66 games Chelsea have taken in at this juncture seem to have most effected their mental sharpness. This was evident in their midweek clash with Tottenham, both in the way they stood off Emmanuel Adebayor for an eternity as he strode up the pitch and shot unchallenged into Petr Cech’s top corner and the way in which poor decision making and final balls cost them numerous chances to put that match beyond doubt.

The Blues are in the midst of a sequence of three wins and one draw in four away games that is all the more impressive given adversaries in that run included Liverpool, Basle and Manchester United, but a resurgent Villa are still fancied to earn a draw at 11/4 after two straight wins.