On Sunday, Aston Villa and Tottenham Hotspur will square off in a crucial Premier League matchup for the top four spots.
Currently, five points and one spot ahead of Ange Postecoglou’s Spurs in fourth place in the standings is Unai Emery’s Villans.
Spurs and Villa have both recently seen improvements in their league performances. While Spurs upset Crystal Palace last week, the Villans have won their previous three games in the premier league.
Midweek saw the claret-and-blue team play in the Europa Conference League as well; in their first leg of the round of 16, they drew 0-0 away against Ajax.
Chris Sutton reckons Aston Villa v Tottenham is hard one to call
On every Premier League matchday, pundits offer their analyses and forecasts regarding the lineup. Among them is Chris Sutton, a writer for BBC Sport.
Although he believes that Aston Villa will win 3-2, he acknowledges that this matchup is extremely difficult to call. His choice is largely based on instinct.
“This season, I’ve found it challenging to predict because there seem to be more games with outcomes that I wouldn’t be surprised by,” Sutton wrote.
“Aside from the teams at the bottom of the table, there haven’t been many patterns that lead one to believe that one team would win or lose. However, I would normally anticipate some patterns to be visible.
Rather, this is just another illustration of a match that Villa may win, lose, or draw 3-3.
“Villa’s home form was very consistent for a while, but even that has declined in the last few weeks. I still think they will win, but this is just my opinion and not really supported by any hard data.”
Aston Villa and Tottenham to draw in high-scoring affair – opinion
It’s difficult to argue with Sutton’s assessment of how difficult it is to call this game.
When it comes to a number of results this season, especially involving the teams outside of the championship or relegation races, it has been practically a free-for-all.
When things don’t go their way, Villa and Tottenham can both lose to anyone as well as defeat anyone on their day.
Since anything can happen, I’ll remain neutral and call for a 2-2 tie. You might also have as many goals as you like; I wouldn’t be shocked by a 1-0 or a 6-3 result.
