Aston Villa vs Sunderland

22/3- Aston Villa are just a point behind the sixth placed team, Portsmouth, and they would like to overtake them in order to grab the as there are nearly 4 teams fighting it out for the spot. In an attempt to get to the top 6 teams of the premiership Aston Villa play hosts to the 17^th placed team from Sunderland. The fact that makes this match even more interesting is that even Sunderland is just a position away from the danger zone or the relegation zone and with the safety margin being just a couple of points they would not like to be defeated. In fact the match can be an open affair where both sides would go for an outright win because they would want to achieve a target, while the home team would like to make it to the top six and are just a position away, the visiting team would like to remain in the top draw. Aston Villa have had a mixed bag form in the last 5 games with 2 draws, 2 victories and a single loss while their opponents, Sunderland, have registered only a single win and a single draw with three losses in the last 5 matches.

Having won 3 of the last 5 home matches and drawn the remaining two Aston Villa would start off as favourites but last week’s loss to Portsmouth in an away tie would have hurt the team and might have also affected the confidence of the players. They would like to put a strong performance against a team like Sunderland so that they can revive the dream of making it to the top 6 before the end of this season.                                                                        

Sunderland on the other hand would want to somehow manage to get some points off this match, even a point in this away tie may be useful as the point difference between teams at the bottom of the table is very less.

Prediction: 2-1, Aston Villa win