Chelsea vs Aston Villa Prediction: This one can deliver goals

Chelsea host Aston Villa in the fourth round of the FA Cup at Stamford Bridge on Friday night (19:45) and they will be looking to have just as much joy in this competition as they are in the Carabao Cup, having secured their place in the final following their midweek thrashing of Middlesbrough. 

Mauricio Pochettino will see Unai Emery's side as a good test for his players and he will want to see improvements from their defeat to Villa on home soil in the Premier League back in September. 

Villa edged that contest 1-0 thanks to an Ollie Watkins strike and Malo Gusto was sent off for the Blues. Chelsea will want to show their claret and blue opponents that they will not be bullied on this occasion.

Match Odds

Chelsea are almost odds on to get the victory at 11/10. Villa are 12/5 to post their second win at Stamford Bridge this term, while you can back the stalemate at 5/2.

Both teams to score is 4/6 and over 2.5 goals is valued at 4/5.

Team News

Chelsea are still dealing with an injury crisis as several key stars are still confined to the medical bay. Wesley Fofana, Marc Cucurella, Robert Sanchez, Reece James, Lesley Ugochukwu, Trevoh Chalobah, Romeo Lavia and Malo Gusto are all out of action currently.

Christopher Nkunku could return to the squad on Friday after being sidelined for the past few weeks. Ben Chilwell is expected to be available also after the defender was taken off as a precaution against Boro in midweek. Nicolas Jackson is unavailable due to his participation at the Africa Cup of Nations with Senegal.

Villa have an AFCON absentee of their own in Betrand Traore, who is representing Burkina Faso. Emery's only major injury concern at the moment is full-back Lucas Digne.

Over 3.5 goals @ 2/1

Unlike their previous encounter, we have a feeling that this meeting can deliver an abundance of goals. Pochettino still hasn't got Chelsea where he wants them to be, but they have been evolving since their loss to Villa earlier in the season.

They both have plenty of quality in attack and we fancy this to be on show in west London on Friday night. While Watkins has scored a lot of goals for Villa this year (nine in all competitions), Chelsea have had a lethal marksman of their own in Cole Palmer (11 in all competitions).

The former Manchester City man scored twice in midweek as Chelsea cruised to a 6-1 victory over Boro to secure their place in the Carabao Cup final next month. He has scored five goals in as many outings for the Blues in recent weeks and not many players have as much confidence as he does right now.

Both these key players can have a huge role to play in this match and they can certainly help this selection to land at 2/1.

Over 9.5 corners @ EVS

We have gone for a very interesting selection here, but seeing as we think that this game will deliver an abundance of goals, logic would suggest that there will be a fair amount of corners to go with them.

For there to be at least 10 corners in the match at EVS feels like good value because these two teams smashed that barrier back in September. Chelsea posted five corners while Villa posted a whopping 11. And considering how much the Blues have been improving since then, we believe that they can up their corner numbers in this clash.

Their average in the Premier League this year currently stands at 5.10, which isn't ideal. But coupled with Villa's 6.14, it would suggest that there is a good chance that we will see 10 corners taken in this game on Friday.