Week Eight – Leeds United vs Aston Villa – Sport Grill

Leeds United welcome Aston Villa to Elland Road in a mid-table Premier League encounter.

Victory would see Leeds climb to eighth in the table, whereas Villa can leapfrog their hosts and go 12th with a win.

Team News

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Rodrigo could return for Leeds after recovering from a shoulder injury which ruled him out of their 5-2 defeat at Brentford last month.

Adam Forshaw (ankle) and Stuart Dallas (thigh) are sidelined.

Aston Villa could be without Cameron Archer if he fails to recover from a minor adductor injury.

Matty Cash (hamstring), Boubacar Kamara (knee), Lucas Digne (heel) and Diego Carlos (Achilles) are ruled out.

Stat Attack

• Leeds have won one of their last four Premier League meetings against Aston Villa (W1, D1, L2).
• Aston Villa are unbeaten in four of their last five Premier League visits to Leeds (W2, D2, L1).
• Villa’s Philippe Coutinho scored in both appearances against Leeds last season (W1, D1).
• Leeds have won both home matches this season in which Rodrigo scored a goal (W2).
• John McGinn has been yellow carded in each of Aston Villa’s last two away matches (L2).

Prediction

Having not played in a month and had the advantage of watching Brighton and Crystal Palace play on Saturday after they too had a month off, Leeds now have a slight advantage of knowing what will be needed to hit the ground running quickly to shake off rustiness.

I though would like to see a more solid Leeds defence because their greed in pushing high up the pitch against Brentford last month proved their downfall, as proved by stretched trackbacks plus sloppy fouls and marking, whilst their attacks were often wasteful up front.

Villa meanwhile simply showed more desire and creativity to scrape their win over Southampton last time out – amidst inaccurate finishing up front, so I would like to see more bravery here but with better accuracy in their shooting.

Leeds though are unbeaten at home this season and with Rodrigo back from injury, I do expect them to come out and play their high-intensity attacking style, which might just give them the edge if they can limit Villa’s creativity and frustrate them when under pressure on Villa’s attacks.

Prediction: Leeds United 2-1 Aston Villa