Aston Villa are expected to cruise into the FA Cup quarter-finals.
20:00 Friday
Aston Villa and Cardiff battle it out for a place in the FA Cup quarter-finals.
Aston Villa vs Cardiff Prediction
- Aston Villa come into Friday's FA Cup welcome of Cardiff on the back of a demoralising 4-1 loss at Crystal Palace in midweek.
- Unai Emery tinkered with his tactics for that defeat, using a three-man backline, but should return to a four-man defence as he looks to extend Villa's unbeaten run to 15 matches with a win on Friday night.
- Cardiff ended a three-game winless run with a 1-0 triumph over Hull last time out.
- Conversely, the Bluebirds are unbeaten in three heading into Friday's cup clash with the Villans, though the Championship side have been sub-par on their travels of late, winning only one of their last five away games, and even that was a penalty shootout success against Stoke in the last round of the FA Cup.
- While Villa will have been disappointed with the manner of their loss in south London on Tuesday night, they should maintain their fine form at Villa Park and book a spot in the next round of the FA Cup at Cardiff's expense on Friday night.
Score Prediction: Aston Villa 3-1 Cardiff
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Aston Villa vs Cardiff Lineups
Aston Villa vs Cardiff predicted lineups are brought to you by WhoScored.com
Aston Villa Predicted Lineup vs Cardiff
Olsen, Maatsen, Mings, Konsa, García, Tielemans, McGinn, Rashford, Asensio, Bailey, Malen
Cardiff Predicted Lineup vs Aston Villa
Horvath, O'Dowda, Fish, Goutas, Ng, Mannsverk, Chambers, Willock, Colwill, Ashford, Salech
Aston Villa vs Cardiff Team News
- Emiliano Martinez was forced off at the break in Tuesday's 4-1 loss at Crystal Palace, with Robin Olsen in line to deputise should the Argentine fail to recover in time to start here.
- Unai Emery remains without injured trio Pau Torres, Ross Barkley, and Matty Cash, while Amadou Onana and Boubacar Kamara are doubts.
- Combined with Axel Disasi's ineligibility, Tyrone Mings is expected to partner Ezri Konsa at the heart of the defence, though Mings will be checked.
- Further forward, Leon Bailey, Marco Asensio and Marcus Rashford may support Donyell Malen in attack, with the quartet starting the midweek defeat on the bench.
- That said, Emery has confirmed that Malen is sick, and he'll have a late check ahead of kick off.
- Ethan Horvath should continue between the sticks with first choice shotstopper Jak Alnwick ruled out for the rest of the season owing to a hamstring tear.
- Alnwick is one of six players missing for the Bluebirds for their FA Cup trip to Aston Villa, with Ollie Tanner, Will Alves, David Turnbull, Jesper Daland and Joe Ralls all absent due to injury.
- Anwar El Ghazi will hope to start against his former employers, though may have to settle for a place on the bench as Cian Ashford and Chris Willock feature on the right and left, respectively. Another former Villan, Calum Chambers, is set to start alongside Sivert Mannsverk in the middle of the park, with Aaron Ramsey and Alex Robertson likely featuring from the bench.
- Cardiff boss Omer Riza may opt for a 4-2-3-1 setup for this one, with the return of Dimitrios Goutas a huge boost after the Greek centre-back served his ban in a 1-0 win over Hull.
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Aston Villa vs Cardiff Odds
| Result | Odds | Implied Probability |
|---|---|---|
| Aston Villa | 2/9 | 82% |
| Draw | 6/1 | 14% |
| Cardiff | 16/1 | 6% |
Aston Villa vs Cardiff Bet Builder Tips
Our Aston Villa vs Cardiff Bet Builder Tips features Callum Chambers to be Carded and Malen to Score.
At the time of publishing it is a best price of 12/1 with BetMGM.
- Callum Chambers has picked up six yellow cards this season and averages 1.3 fouls per game.
- He is up against far stronger opposition than he is used to here and faces two fo Villa's most fouled players.
- McGinn draws an average of 2.4 fouls per game and Tielemans draws an average of 1.76.
- Villa will not doubt be on the front foot in this game and Chambers faces a tough task containing them.
- Malen hasn't really had an opportunity to show Villa what he can do with gametime limited since his arrival. Nevertheless the former Dortmund forward has bagged two goals for Villa and had the ball in the net a couple times (disallowed).
- He averages 3.85 shots per 90 and 1.5 on target per 90.
- Malen should get some solid minutes under his belt in this game and I fancy him to find the net against a side that has the third worst defensive record in the league.
