In what feels like an age since the last fixture, West Ham United travel to Villa Park this evening to take on Aston Villa.
Dean Smith’s promotion new boys suffered a 1-0 defeat to Crystal Palace in their last fixture and will look to bounce back in front of their home crowd against the Hammers.
West Ham ran out comfortable winners against Norwich City in their last fixture, with Sebastian Haller and Andriy Yarmolenko grabbing the goals.
Aston Villa have thrown a lot of money at their promotion to the Premier League and have acquired a dozen new players to do so.
Their key man up front is Wesley Moraes, who was signed for £22million from Club Brugge. He is strong and powerful and Villa look to find him on every opportunity.
The closest comparison I can give is to Joelinton, who has signed for Newcastle United, with the exception of not being as mobile.
Despite showing promise going forward, Aston Villa tend to give up a lot of the ball around the final third.
Against Palace last week, the likes of Wilfred Zaha and Jordan Ayew, who went on to score the winner, were allowed to play passes in and around.
In the Championship, Villa were afforded the luxury of defending deep and hitting on the counter. In the Premier League, you cannot afford to give the opposition as much space.
Now, let’s look at the key battles for tonight’s outing and how West Ham may look to exploit the Villans.
