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Vs Derby County: Match Preview


JohnCresswell

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Vs Derby County: Match Preview

I’m not the most tolerant person, I’ll admit that. Give me the name of a football club and I’ll be able to give you a reason why everyone should hate them. Well, most clubs anyway. But Derby are one of those clubs which are difficult to hate.

Villa travel the 43 miles to Pride Park on Saturday for a rare 3PM kick off in a game which we’ll be expected to win. But let’s not go there with the idea that we’ve already won, eh?

Because Villa seem to have this habit at times. To turn up and give the impression that we’ve already got the three points. The Sunderland and Fulham games this season are a perfect example in that and I think this season we’ve let ourselves down in the games where we play the lower placed teams – if we hadn’t dropped points against teams such as these then we’d be looking at still being in the running for straight UEFA Cup qualification.

At Villa Park we have had quite an impressive record – 40 wins (including the 2-0 win this season) compared to 10 draws and only nine losses.

Our away form against Derby isn’t as great, we’ve only won 19, drawn 11 and lost 28, but with Derby being such a poor team this season and Villa taking a big backing despite the very pricey £35 tickets we will be hoping that it moves onto 20 wins.

Betting

Villa to win 8/13

Draw 5/2

Derby to win 9/2

First goalscorer: John Carew 9/2, Agbonlahor 5/1. Harewood 6/1, Young 8/1, Miller 8/1, Villa 8/1

Looking at that, personally I think Villa to score first for Derby is not only worth having a punt on because it’s confusing, but 8/1 is fairly decent odds especially as Villa (the team!) don’t usually start too brightly. That’s also why I think a Derby half time, Villa full time at 22/1 is also a decent bet.

Team News

Shaun Maloney could be back in the squad following his disappearance last weekend, and with Petrov’s fantastic performance last weekend he may get to keep his place. There are no fresh injury worries for O’Neill, which is just as well really. If booked, Nigel Reo-Coker will be suspended for the Everton and Birmingham City games but it is unlikely that he’ll be rested.

Robbie Savage and Dean Leacock are both fighting to be fit in time for the game, and winger Mile Stejovski (yes, I haven’t heard of him either) is definitely out.

The referee is Keith Stroud from Hampshire. He has had five Premiership games so far this year and given 17 yellow cards in them making it an average of just over 3 yellows a game. He's given no red cards.

Did you know?

Paddy Power paid out on bets for Derby County to be relegated only five games into this season.

The record transfer fee Derby have paid out was this summer - £3.5million (yep, that’s right, the same as Zat Knight) for Robert Earnshaw who seems to have barely played since signing.

Derby have gone 27 games without a win. Villa have only one win in six games, and onlyu one game in their past six away matches.

Derby have used 34 players this season, which is the most any team in the Premiership have used. Villa have fielded 22 – which is the least

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Villa to win 9/2 is wrong. Derby are 9/2 to win and Villa to win are 8/13. I saw the Villa odds on here and jumped straight to a gambling website, much to my disappointment :(

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Villa to win 9/2 is wrong. Derby are 9/2 to win and Villa to win are 8/13. I saw the Villa odds on here and jumped straight to a gambling website, much to my disappointment :(

Ah me too! I have a free £20 bet on paddypower from my Grand National dabblings and was just about to use it on that!

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