EPL Week 4 Monday Preview: Stoke City Vs Aston Villa Odds & Pick

W
eek 4 of the English Premier League season comes to a conclusion this Monday when Aston Villa travels to Brittania Stadium to take on Stoke City. Kick off is scheduled for 3:00 PM ET.


Currently in sixth place with 6 points and a 2-0-1 record, Aston Villa will be looking to build off of their solid victory two weeks ago over Everton. After early season turmoil in their front office, Aston Villa seem to finally be getting everything back in order. Monday’s match against Stoke City will be the debut of newly hired manager Gerard Houllier, which will go a long way in re-establishing stability in the front office. Despite the 6-0 thrashing in week 2 at the hands of Newcastle United, Aston Villa has been surprisingly solid overall this season. In its other two games this season, Aston Villa has come away with 2 victories while allowing no goals against in the process. The team has been effective offensively while being solid on the defensive end. However, it is still early in the season, and the front office problems that Aston Villa has had to deal with to start this season could still come back to haunt them. Although Aston Villa is, on paper, the better team going into this match up, their early results still leave some questions and their solid performances can’t be counted on until they show more consistency.

Stoke City entered this season as one of the favorites to face relegation at the end of this season, and their results thus far reflect this. They are currently tied for last place with zero points after three games. Unfortunately for them, his seems likely that they will have to wait at least one more week before earning their first point of the season. They have found some limited success on offense early in the season, but they haven’t been able to stop anybody defensively. They have allowed 2 goals in each of their first three games. They need to find some way to tighten up their defense in order to climb the table and fight off relegation, but the question still remains as to whether Stoke City has the personnel for it. The recent addition of striker Jermaine Pennant to the Stoke City attack, on loan from Real Zaragoza, could help bolster the offense and help close the gap for the team in goal differential, but it won’t help them on the defensive end, where they need the most help.

Although Aston Villa should be the favorite in this match up, the odds going into this one reflect all of the questions that still remain about these sides. The odds have this one as an even pick, so picking a winner doesn’t offer any enough value. The best bets for this one are the over/under on the total at 2 ½ goals and the draw. Given Aston Villa’s consistent scoring and Stoke City’s porous defense, the over has good value here. Bookmaker has the over at +175. The best value on the draw is on Bodog, currently at +225.