Aston Villa Match Preview

Wednesday’s penalty shootout win over Manchester city sees West Ham United go to The Tottenham Hotspur Stadium for a quarter-final tie to be played in the week commencing December 20. Before then they will look to continue their current run of Premier League success, as they end October by facing a trip to Villa Park to take on Aston Villa this afternoon.

The Hammers are still unbeaten on the road and will be looking for a third straight win over Dean Smith’s side having beaten them in October last year, while also winning the corresponding fixture back in February.

They will also be hoping to add to the recent misery for the Villains, which has seen them lose their last three matches. Having said that, the home side may have a slight advantage here, as they will not have played for nine straight days, whereas the Irons have been in action twice since Villa were defeated 3-1 at Arsenal. After this encounter, David Moyes’ men will immediately turn their focus to a trip to Belgium and the upcoming UEFA Europa League encounter with KRC Genk on Thursday.

The East Londoners have not lost to today’s hosts since Villa were promoted back to the top tier in 2019 and they will hope that particular record continues here.

Vladimír Coufal came on from the bench four days ago and could take the place of Ben Johnson if David Moyes decides that changes are needed. Otherwise, the Scotsman is likely to revert to his normal top-flight starting line-up, although Alphonse Areola, Andriy Yarmolenko, Nikola Vlašić, Craig Dawson, Manuel Lanzini, Arthur Masuaku, Issa Diop and Mark Noble are all in contention and could play some part.

Alex Král is still not ready to return to the matchday squad as he continues to recover after contracting Coronavirus.

The match is a 4:30pm kick-off and live coverage will be screened by Sky Sports from 4pm. The referee is Christopher Kavanagh.