
UK football expert Matthew O'Regan provides his betting tips on this weekends Premier League games, including Tottenham vs Aston Villa, where two teams with European aspirations do battle in North London.
Last seasons Premier League and European form was chalk and cheese. The 17th place finish was the lowest in their Premier League history but they also secured their first ever European title, winning the Europa League over Manchester United in Bilbao. Ultimately, this was not enough to keep Ange Postecoglu in a job, with the Australian sacked at the end of the season.
Brentford's Thomas Frank was hired as his replacement and the Dane has had a solid yet unspectacular start to his tenure. His side currently sit third in the Premier League but performances have been far from convincing. Strong performances against Burnley (3-0) and Manchester City (0-2) started the campaign, before a tepid display saw them muster just 5 shots in a 0-1 loss to Bournemouth.
A Tomas Soucek red card saw them coast to victory against bitter rivals West Ham- followed by back-to-back lacklustre draws against Brighton and Wolves. Clarity was restored with a scrappy 1-2 win over Leeds but fans are still yearning for more performance wise.
On the injury front, Ben Davies, Dejan Kulusevski, Dom Solanke, James Maddison, Yves Bissouma and Radu Dragusin remain out.
Aston Villa had a disastrous start to the Premier League season, failing to win any of their first five games, scoring just one goal. Since then, they have beaten Bologna, Fulham, Feyenoord and Burnley, arresting any fears that this season could be a stagnant one.
Unai Emery's side sit 13th but a win would most likely see them jump into the top half of the Premier League. Emery is known to rotate his sides when the schedule is tight and with the visit to Go Ahead Eagles in midweek, we could see a much-changed Villians line up.
Emi Buendía is a doubt with concussion, whereas Jadon Sancho, Tyrone Mings and Youri Tielemans are all expected to be absent.
It has been hard to split these two sides in recent years. In the last 14 fixtures, they have won seven apiece. In fact, you'd have to go back to 2012 for the last draw between the sides, with Emmanuel Adebayor's 61st minute penalty cancelling out Ciaran Clark's first half opener.
Thomas Frank's first port of call in the Tottenham dugout would've been to tighten up a defence that conceded 65 goals last season and the Dane has done just that so far. Only North London rivals Arsenal have conceded fewer goals than Spurs. This will bring encouragement against an Aston Villa side who have scored the joint second fewest goals in the league.
Prediction: Under 2.5 Goals - 1.90 - Betway

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