Man City v Aston Villa: Back Rodri to fire with 13/2 Bet Builder

• City are second favourites for title but we must keep faith

• Rodri can lead goalscoring charge in home win

• Read about Betfair's 90 Minute Payout offer here

Man City v Aston Villa
Wednesday 3 April, 20:15 kick-off
Live on TNT Sports

Should we be starting to worry about Manchester City? Is the air of invincibility slipping slightly?

They are now very much second favourites in the Premier League title race at 3.259/4 behind Liverpool, who thrust themselves into favouritism on Sunday at 2.35/4 with a perfect storm of results.

City have only scored nine goals in their last seven Premier League games, an average which drops way below the 2.47 goals per game average they racked up across the league last season.

But I'm not overly worried.

The key performance metrics behind those performances are holding up well when analysing them against the "normal" figures we'd expect from a Man City side managed by Pep Guardiola.

The overall expected goals figure, calculated by Opta, have City posting a figure of 14.44 goals during that period, pointing to an underperformance. A common trait when assessing data from a small sample size. This means City are still creating quality chances and what we're seeing is a little bit of variance and volatility with their finishing output.

Other key metrics like touches in the opposition box and shots from inside the box are also strong. No team have averaged more touches in the opposition box in the last seven games than City (51.8) and only Liverpool are posting a higher shots in the box average than City (13.1).

Losing faith in them would be a foolish move - something mirrored in the market where they are 1.292/7 to beat Aston Villa on the Betfair Exchange. The away win is trading at 11.010/1 and the draw at 7.26/1.

Back Rodri to haunt Villa yet again

Manchester City can't afford to lose Rodri at any point in this run-in if they are going to pick up silverware this season. The City lynchpin in midfield is on a remarkable 62-game unbeaten run for the club.

Since the start of that run from February 2023, Rodri has missed 11 games for City and they suffered defeat in five of them, including in the reverse fixture at Villa Park which Unai Emery's team deservedly won 1-0.

Rodri makes makes them tick, he passes brilliantly under pressure and he snuffs out opposition counter attacks. If you could create the perfect no.6, Rodri is as close to perfection as you can get.

And my eyes are always drawn to Rodri's attacking output.

The bulldozing midfielder has a taste for shots and has developed his game to become one of City's most dangerous goalscoring threats. He's become incredibly intelligent at finding space, unmarked, in and around the box when City are probing and also offers a threat aerially from set pieces.

Villa have seen this up close. Rodri has scored four in his last eight appearances against them and has averaged a whopping 2.18 shots per 90 minutes across those eight matches. His overall per 90 shots average this season stands at 1.9 whilst he's managed to find the net seven times across all competitions.

I like the look of his anytime goalscorer price here at 5/16.00 with the Betfair Sportsbook and I'm keen on building that price up through the Bet Builder.

You can boost those odds to 13/27.50 by simply adding a City home win and Rodri to have two or more shots to the bet. Considering all those three outcomes are closely linked, it could be a shrewd way to squeeze out a little more juice on that Rodri goalscorer angle.

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