Aston Villa vs Manchester United Betting Tips

Aston Villa are desperate to get off to a better start than last season in the Premier League to try and avoid the dreaded relegation battle that they were locked in towards the end of the last campaign.

They got off to a good start, although their 1-0 win over the newly promoted Bournemouth didn’t come easily and the Villa build up play looked rather laboured for the majority of the match.

It took a trademark Rudy Gestede header on his Aston Villa debut to break the deadlock after he replaced Jordan Ayew in the second half.

Tim Sherwood will certainly be looking for his team to improve in the attacking sense, but he will be understandably pleased to pick up 3 points on the opening day of the season.

This makes it 2 wins in Aston Villa’s last 5 matches, with all of the other 3 ending as draws. Their attacking play did look better in their friendly draws against Walsall, Wolves, and Nottingham Forest. But Premier League opposition is a different beast, even if it is a newly promoted team.

Manchester United also secured an opening day 3 points thanks to their own narrow victory over Tottenham Hotspurs.

They, like their opposition, looked very rusty as they took to the pitch for the first time this season, and struggled to carve out chances throughout the whole 90 minutes.

They controlled possession in the middle of the park well, but just couldn’t make anything happen in the final third, and it took an unfortunate Kyle Walker own goal to seal the victory for Man Utd.

Villa Park has historically ended with positive results for Manchester United, with the only blip from the last 3 years of fixtures being a 1-1 draw in December of last year.

Overall, Manchester United have won 5 of their last 6 games against Aston Villa, but this newly reformed Tim Sherwood side do look a lot more promising than all the other recent periods in their history.

Despite the Aston Villa overhaul, we still expect Manchester United to take the 3 points on Friday. It’s likely to be a narrow victory though, and considering the defensive strength both sides showed in their opening games we think odds of 5/2 for a Man Utd Win and Under 2.5 Goals are excellent value for money.