Aston Villa vs Reading Predictions

Aston Villa are out to bounce back from consecutive draws as they host struggling Reading on Saturday. The home side grabbed a point late on in their meeting with Brentford on Wednesday night, stopping one of the early season promotion contenders. Steve Bruce has settled things at Villa Park after a summer which saw them start in deep trouble, and emerge as top six contenders. Their early season form has done little to dampen any hopes of a play-off spot, which makes this an incredibly tough game for the visitors.

Villa were a stern test for a Brentford side who started this season in brilliant form. With Jack Grealish hanging around, they’ve got almost all of the side who made a promotion push last season. They’ve added a few players in the window, and now Villa look to be up and running for the new campaign. They have the perfect chance to continue their unbeaten start this weekend, and they’re heavy favourites to return to winning ways against Reading.

The visitors are searching for a first win of the season, and their early season form has shown exactly why they were among the relegation contenders this term. With just a point to their name, the Royals have the second worst record at this early stage of the campaign. They managed to avoid defeat for the first time in midweek, but they threw away a 2-0 lead with some disastrous defending at Blackburn. That doesn’t bode well for a difficult trip this weekend.

The Royals failed to win 78% of their away trips last season, and they seem to be going downhill as time goes on. We don’t rate their defence very highly, while Reading have struggled to create chances. They head in to this weekend against a Villa side who have Jonathan Kodjia in fine form, while the hosts won this fixture 3-0 last term. Villa have been priced up as favourites, after winning 11 of 14 games at home to sides outside of the top 10. While they aren’t overly short to win this game, we’re looking at a slightly bigger price.

The Villains look like value with a -1 Asian Handicap in this clash. For that bet to land we need the hosts to win by two clear goals, which they achieved in over half of their league victories last term. After the shambles which Reading’s defence fell in to in midweek, expect the hosts to run rampant going forward. We’re going with Villa to rack up a comfortable win by backing the handicap, while with this bet, the stake is returned should the favourites win the game by a single goal.