Aston Villa v Man City: Haaland First Goalscorer stats impossible to ignore

• Shock defeat for Villa but Man City win again

• Watkins continues out of form and my be benched

• Haaland in scintillating form and the obvious 11/43.75 bet

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Aston Villa v Man City
Sunday, 14:00
Live on Sky Sports

Slow starts followed by good recoveries

It's been a strange start to the season for Aston Villa to say the least. After failing to score in each of their opening four Premier League games, an EFL Cup exit at the hands of Brentford and a disappointing 1-1 draw at Sunderland then followed.

Villa then went on a five-game winning run that included an excellent come-from-behind victory at Tottenham last weekend, only to then go and lose to Dutch side Go Ahead Eagles in the Europa League on Thursday night.

That defeat shouldn't worry Unai Emery too much given that he made plenty of changes to his starting XI before seeing his side dominate proceedings and create plenty of chances only for Emiliano Buendia to miss a second half penalty that would have salvaged a point.

Manchester City also had a strange start to their season, thrashing Wolves on the opening weekend before suffering back-to-back defeats at the hands of Tottenham and Brighton.

But Pep Guardiola's men have bounced back superbly and are now on a nine-game unbeaten run (W7, D2) in all competitions which could have been a nine-game winning run but for last gasp goals conceded against Arsenal and Monaco.

The Citizens are up to second in the table and they've overtaken Liverpool as second favourites to win the Premier League title - currently availalee to back at 10/34.33.

City deserving favourites but no juice in their price

In the Match Odds market Manchester City are the obvious, and deserving, favourites to win the game at 4/51.80 but despite the great run of form they're on at the moment I don't think we're seeing the Citizens back to the levels they were at two and three seasons ago. The signs are good though, and we might regret looking a gift horse in the mouth if they win this game comfortably.

Guardiola seems to have settled on a regular starting XI, but as I said a few weeks ago that's perhaps more because of the number of injuries he had rather than something he wanted to do, so it will be interesting to see if he tinkers with his side now the likes of Rayan Cherki and Omar Marmoush are back fit.

If he does tinker - and there's no suggestion that he will do - that will be a negative for me. Changing a winning team can be disruptive, and with the number of games City have coming up then it will be no surprise to see Pep resort back to his squad rotation policy.

We've also got to factor in Villa's good recent record against Man City. They drew this corresponding fixture 1-1 three seasons ago, and in the last two seasons they beat City 1-0 in December 2023 and 2-1 in December 2024. 

Hand on heart, I still fancy Man City to win the game, I just don't think Villa score enough and given City's defensive record of late - three clean sheets on the spin and five in their last eight - a single goal for the away team could win this. But I just think there's enough negatives - the odds-on price, possible rotation, Villa's recent record in this fixture - for me to give this market a miss.

If you fancy Villa then they can be backed at 10/34.33 to win the game with the Draw priced up at 29/103.90.

A tale of two strikers

Scoring goals wins you games, and no one is doing it better than Erling Haaland right now. Okay, there's a certain guy at Bayern Munich doing just as good, but you get my gist.

The brilliant striker has scored in all bar one of his 14 appearances for club and country this season. He's on a staggering run of scoring in 12 consecutive games, and he has an incredible 24 goals to his name this term, 11 of which have came in just eight Premier League appearances.

Compare Haaland's figures to Villa's star striker Ollie Watkins and it really is the definition of chalk and cheese (note: the below stars are Premier League appearances only).

Player vs Player

English Premier League

Erling Haaland

Man City

English Premier League

Ollie Watkins

Aston Villa

Haaland Watkins

Appearances 35 37

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Goals 27 16

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Shots 126 83

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Shots on target 59 38

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Assists 8 3

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Chances created 25 23

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Passes 384 476

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Fouls 24 35

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Fouls won 25 32

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Yellow cards 2 4

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Red cards 0 0

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Watkins has scored just once in 12 appearances for his club this season. He looks devoid of any confidence and even missed a penalty in his team's 1-0 win over Bologna in the Europa League. He was replaced halfway through the second half in Thursday's defeat to Go Ahead Eagles after another poor performance and it would be no surprise to see him benched for the visit of Man City on Sunday.

Watkins is 2/13.00 to Score Anytime against City but that bet is easily passed over in favour of a wager that involves Haaland getting on the scoresheet for the 13th game running.

The Norwegian striker is 5/61.84 to get on the scoresheet against Villa, which is a tempting price in itself, but given that Haaland has scored the first goal in six of his last seven club games then the 11/43.75 for him to score first appeals as the bet to have if you want to get him on side.

Now read Alan Shearer's Matchday 9 Predictions here.