Aston Villa – Chelsea

In Birmingham, the rivals will exchange goals.

Another round of the English championship is packed with exciting and crucial fixtures for the standings. The Birmingham clash stands out from the rest because it brings together direct rivals for a place in the Champions League spots. The tension here has risen sharply after Aston Villa stopped even nominally contending for the title, and two star-studded squads have emerged: Manchester United and Liverpool. The Birmingham club really could not keep up with Arsenal and Manchester City. For a title contender in England, two slumps in a single season are an unforgivable luxury. It’s worth recalling that Villa's first crisis came at the very start of the season, when in several opening rounds they could not only fail to win, but even score a goal. February for Unai Emery's team proved no less disastrous. In just one month Aston Villa were eliminated from the FA Cup and dropped from the Premier League's top three. The peak of Villa's decline was the defeat in the previous round to Wolverhampton, a club that can already be considered relegated to the Championship. In total, in the last five rounds of the national championship, Aston Villa have lost twice, drawn twice and won only once. Moreover, during that period the team did not face a single Top-6 opponent. Chelsea, at the start of the year, changed their manager. Enzo Maresca left the post, replaced by Leam Rosenior, who had proven himself in Strasbourg. The Blues' results over the past two months have somewhat improved, but in almost all key matches Chelsea lose. During this period Rosenior's side have thrice lost to Arsenal: twice in the English League Cup and once more in the previous round of the league. Chelsea sit sixth in the Premier League table, six points behind the last Champions League qualification spot. It is Villa that occupies that spot, so a defeat in Birmingham ten rounds from the season's end would increase the gap to nine points, which would look like a catastrophe for the London club. Both clubs will fight for the win until the last, so the best betting option for the match appears to be both teams to score.