Manchester United will slip to a seventh straight away league defeat at Brentford, says Jones Knows who also sees Leicester nicking a point at Arsenal.
Aston Villa vs Everton, Saturday 12.30pm
For the sake of Everton’s away form, there is a hope that Frank Lampard has taken a long look into the mirror over the summer. As a Premier League manager the way Lampard sets his teams up on the road has been staggeringly bad when you assess the defensive numbers.
In 38 games as a boss at the top-level with a Chelsea side that went on to win the Champions League just six months after he left and at Everton, Lampard’s teams’ have shipped 73 goals on the road, working out at an average of 1.92 goals conceded every 90 minutes.
That needs to change.
And I’m willing to give Lampard, a highly intelligent man it must be added, the benefit of the doubt in that regard based on the signings of James Tarkowski and Conor Coady. Surely there will be an ethos of being harder to beat, with early signs against Chelsea relatively positive.
With Aston Villa’s lack of attacking guile, Everton having no-one to score a goal and a strong likelihood of them playing with a great emphasis on being defensively sound, a low-scoring encounter is fancied at Villa Park.
Unfortunately this has been noted by the markets where the under 2.5 goals line is a skinny 8/11 with Sky Bet so there is no real enthusiasm for me to get involved. Those hunting a bigger price to follow may like the look of the draw and under 2.5 goals in the match at 100/30.