Aston Villa vs Fulham Predictions

• 12 of this pair’s 14 combined games this season have gone under 2.5 goals
• Fulham have won four of their last five games
• Aston Villa have only scored three goals all season
• Josh King has the most shots on target for Fulham, four

Struggling Villa

Aston Villa finally got their first win of the new season in midweek as they squeezed past Bologna 1-0 in the Europa League.

Unai Emery will be hoping that result can kickstart what has been an extremely poor start to the campaign for the Villans, who have only scored once in the Premier League despite what on paper looked like a fairly straightforward fixture list to start the new season.

They host Fulham on Sunday and will be desperate to pick up their first three points in the league.

Cottagers solid as ever

Marco Silva’s side have had a typically solid start to the new campaign, taking eight points from five games and losing just once to rivals Chelsea.

The Cottagers have won three on the spin in all competitions against Leeds, Brentford and Cambridge and would love to make it four with a tough set of games against Bournemouth, Arsenal and Newcastle looming.

One thing that Fulham will be looking to overcome in this game is their shocking record at Villa Park.

Fulham have won just one of their last 21 away league games at Aston Villa and Marco Silva has lost six of his seven Premier League matches against these opponents.

King could open account

The hosts need every confidence-boosting stat that they can get at the moment after a chastening run of games in which they have struggled to lay a glove on their opponents.

Against Sunderland last weekend they went 1-0 up through a goalkeeping error but couldn’t prevent the Black Cats securing an equaliser despite the fact that their opponents were down to ten men.

Even in midweek’s 1-0 home win over Bologna they lost the shot count 17-13 and managed just three shots on target in comparison to their opponents’ seven.

Ollie Watkins’ missed penalty was just another symptom of a striker badly struggling to regain form and Morgan Rogers also had a poor game.

Only two of the combined 14 games that these two have played this season has gone over 2.5 goals and the under looks like a safe bet in this clash.

However for correct score purposes it’s impossible to be too confident in Aston Villa at present so a 1-0 away win is the suggestion, despite the visitors’ poor record at this ground.

The visitors’ youngster Josh King has impressed this season and leads Fulham with four shots on target, he could be the player to find the net in this one.