When they host Crystal Palace at Villa Park on Saturday afternoon, Aston Villa will be attempting to overtake the Eagles in the Premier League standings.
The visitors have seven points from their opening four Premier League games, while the hosts have six points from a potential 12 so far this season.
Aston Villa has had a mixed start to the current campaign, winning two and losing two of their first four Premier League games, with the exception of their resounding 8-0 aggregate triumph over Hibernian to qualify for the Europa Conference League group stage.
Prior to the start of the international break, Unai Emery’s team suffered a 3-0 loss to Liverpool at Anfield, with goals from Dominik Szoboszlai and Mohamed Salah sandwiching an own goal by Matty Cash. This defeat left the Lions in 10th place in the standings.
Villa will be happy to be back at home, where they have won all eight of their recent Premier League games by an average score of 18-2, including a convincing 4-0 success over Everton at the end of August.
A narrow 1-0 victory over Saturday’s opponents Crystal Palace in March marked the start of their amazing winning streak at Villa Park, extending their unbeaten home record against the Eagles to six games.
Emery and company will be eager to get back on track this weekend against a team that has a good chance of winning so they can gather confidence before preparation for their Europa Conference League debut against Legia Warsaw in Poland and a trip to Chelsea on the road in the top division.
Crystal Palace finished strong going into the international break, winning at home 3-2 against Wolverhampton Wanderers in the Premier League after coming from behind to defeat Plymouth Argyle 4-2 in the EFL Cup second round.
After a scoreless first half, Eberechi Eze scored in between goals from Odsonne Edouard to help the Eagles win their second league game of the year, move up to seventh in the standings, and close the gap on the top four teams by just three points.
Despite their strong start, manager Roy Hodgson has insisted that his Palace team is “still very much a work in progress” and that some aspects of their game need to be improved as they prepare to play Aston Villa, Fulham, and a doubleheader against Manchester United in the league and EFL Cup at the end of September.
Only Tottenham Hotspur (0.36) do the Eagles have a lower goal-to-game ratio away from home against an opponent that they have faced at least 10 times in the top flight. Palace enters Saturday’s game having won just one of their last 11 trips to Villa Park, a 1-0 victory in December 2013. They have also only scored five goals (0.45 per game) during this run.
For the first time since the 1994–95 season, Palace would remain unbeaten from their first three away league games if they managed at least a draw against Villa. However, Palace has made an unbeaten start on the road thus far this term, scoring six goals in the process.
