Today's clubgowi subscriber notes contained five full previews and stat pointers from several others, the newsletter ran to over 6,000 words, you can read one preview and some of the stats below............

 

 

Premier League: Aston Villa- Everton

 

I spoke about the Villa problems, both on and off the pitch, ahead of their trip to Stoke City on Saturday ..........They (City) will want to put on a bit of a show for supporters after the Everton debacle and Villa, who were as poor as any EPL team you will ever see at home to Liverpool (0-6) in their last outing, look the ideal opponents. Very little as gone right at Villa Park over the last two seasons, but especially this time round and Joleon Lescott's ill advised social media gaffe after the shameful performance against the Reds was the final straw for many supporters and it would not take much for then to "turn" in any game from here on in. Villa played a behind closed door game last Friday, first teamers against the U21's and the youngsters won 3-0 ! You would expect them to want to put the younger players in their place and to get a little pride back, but you wonder how much of that there is left. Villa have lost 9 of their last 12 EPL away starts and scored just four goals in the last nine and I will be surprised if City do not win this and it could get once again get nasty and quickly,for the visitors.
 

The 2-1 win for City was not a fair reflection and the home side should really have won that by 3-4 goals and the Villans offered little offensively, they scored with their sole attempt of note and did not win a corner for the second match running, the travelling supporters stuck with them , but the home crowd at Villa Park is unlikely to be as forgiving if their team do not show more desire and the comments from boss Remi Garde tell the full story, before the game he said that he "was not seeing enough commitment from all his players in training" and after the match that "we don't have enough quality ".
 

In my preview of Everton's recent away game at Stoke City, I highlighted the potential in the Toffees, especially on the road ............
 

Everton are a bit of an enigma and it is hard to understand fully why they have only posted seven wins all season, they are so much better than that and their 3-7-1 away record is a story of so many missed opportunities. With their pace on the counter, they are at least as good (potentially) away from home as anyone in the Premier League and they could easily have an additional 8-10 road points .  I guess you could say similarly about their form at Goodison Park, but it is away from Liverpool that they can play to their real strengths and with the loss of Ryan Shawcross huge ( Stoke have conceded ten goals in the last 283 minutes he has been off the field), especially with limited options,  I have to take the visitors to record a revenge win for the home defeat to the Potters, but must admit to being tempted by the "over".
 

They won that 3-0 and followed up with a 2-0 away win at Bournemouth and it is hard to see Villa, who will be "forced" to attack, not again leaving some gaping holes for the visitors to exploit. You do keep waiting for pride to kick in at Villa, but the truth is that players have shown far too little of that this season and none in the last few weeks and they have accepted their fate far too easily.
 

The investment of Farhad Moshiri (pictured) who completed his (almost) 50% purchase of Everton this week is going to be huge for the club and it is easy to see every league place that the Toffees pick up this season, relating to greater financial input from the new owner in 2016-17 and a big Champions League push. This is traditionally a high scoring fixture, 8 of the last 10 meetings have gone "over", six have produced four of more goals, Everton have scored two or more in nine and you can really only see one of these two winning a shootout.

 

1.5 units Everton -0.75 ball 2.21 asian line/Sportmarket.

 

Villa have only scored one goal home or away all season in the open 30 minutes of games ( that's 13 and a half hours of football !) , Everton are an EPL best 10-4 (scored -conceded) on the road in the opening half.

 

 

Elsewhere, Millwall have been struggling at the New Den compared to their fine away form, at home they have a +5 goals difference in the opening 15, but it quickly tails off and they are -5 for the other 75 minutes ! They entertain a surging Wigan Athletic team who are a L1 best 11-3 (scored- conceded) in the final 15 minutes and if this is in the balance late, you only really want to be leaning one way !