Cardiff to follow up Swansea win by frustrating Aston Villa

Malky Mackay’s Cardiff travel to Birmingham after a morale-boosting win over Swansea and are taken to grab at least a draw against an out-of-form Aston Villa outfit.

Cardiff double chance @ 3/4

Centre-back Steven Caulker’s header secured a 1-0 win for Cardiff against the Swans and Mackay’s charges will head to Villa Park with a renewed confidence after picking up four points from their last two fixtures.

Paul Lambert’s Villans have no such form to fall back on, having lost two and drawn two of their last four matches without bothering the opposing keeper.

Five of Villa’s regular first-team starters could miss the Cardiff clash with injuries, so they cannot be backed to win here with any confidence.

Peter Whittingham to score at any time @ 7/2

The Nuneaton native spent six years on Villa’s books before moving to Cardiff nearly seven years ago and has quietly rebuilt his career, after failing to make an impact at the Birmingham club.

Whittingham certainly knows the way to goal and scored an impressive 20 times in the Championship during Cardiff’s 2009/10 league campaign.

He got off the mark in the Premier League for the Welsh club with the equaliser at Hull and is surely too big at 7/2 to come back and haunt his former employers with a goal here.

Under 2.5 goals @ 4/6

Cardiff haven’t managed more than two strikes in a match since their first ever Premier League home game – the 3-2 win against Man City.

In fact, they have only managed more than a single goal in two out of 10 top-flight games and their only other two-goal haul was at Fulham, who have the joint-worst home goals-against record outside the bottom two.

Villa haven’t scored a goal in their last four matches and are without wing-forwards Andreas Weimann and Gabby Agbonlahor through injury, so their chances of hitting the mark here are further diminished.