-
Club Brugge are winless in 14 matches with PL teams
-
Morgan Rogers is a card drawing king
-
Villa are drawing 3.77 cards per 90 off their oppostion
Listen to Football...Only Bettor Champions League Special
Club Brugge v Aston Villa
Wednesday 06 November, 17:45
Live on TNT Sports
Aston Villa are top of the Champions League. That just sounds bizarre on many levels.
But this is the reality. Unai Emery is working his magic in Europe again despite the inexperience within the Villa squad at playing at this level of competition. Along with Liverpool, Villa are one of only two teams to have maximum points after three matches and they have yet to concede a goal in outings with Young Boys, Bayern Munich and Bologna.
Meanwhile, Club Brugge lost 0-3 at home to Borussia Dortmund, beat 1-0 at Sturm Graz in their next game before going down 3-1 to AC Milan.
Villa are favourites here but not overwhelmingly so with the Betfair Exchange pricing them as 2.285/4 shots to keep up their perfect record. The Belgians, who are winless in 14 matches with Premier League teams, can be backed at 3.3512/5.
Play your cards right with destructive Rogers
The outright markets here are easily passed up with the prices looking aligned with the true probabilities so I'm heading elsewhere for angle in.
My eyes are drawn to Villa's monster in the middle of the pitch.
Morgan Rogers has been one of the standout players this season in the Premier League, impressing with his consistency of performances and his bulldozing power and running ability playing off Ollie Watkins.
Emery is a huge fan of his work. Rogers has started every single Premier League and Champions League match under the manager this season. He has become as ever-present and is as important as someone like Emiliano Martinez and Watkins. It's easy to make the argument of him being Villa's most important and most efficient player his season.
Rogers has completed 16 dribbles for Aston Villa in the Champions League this season, with this the most on record by an English player (since 2003-04) through the opening three games of a single campaign.
"The way he brushes people away, it's like watching Jonah Lomu," said Jamie Redknapp earlier this season on Rogers. It's a good analogy. The only way to stop him is via a rugby-like intervention to derail a man of such flowing pace and power.
That's why Rogers is a heavy drawer of yellow cards - he's been responsible for winning nine off the opposition in the Premier League this season.
He's played in part in making Villa a card winning machine.
Across 13 games in the Premier League and Champions League, Villa have won 50 yellow cards off the opposition. That is a per game average of 3.77 - a huge total that should remain trending along the same lines whilst Rogers remains in the team. This has triggered my interest in the odds against available for Club Brugge to receive over 2.5 cards at 21/202.05.
If that doesn't quite reach your threshold in terms of price then backing midfielder Ardon Jashari to be carded makes sense at 11/53.20. He's going to be tasked with engaging with Rogers in those central areas and could be tempted to disrupt one of his runs with a cynical foul. Jashari was carded on the last Matchday against AC Milan and has been booked now in three of his last five starts.
Back over 2.5 Club Brugge cards
Back Ardon Jashari to be carded