Aston Villa on the verge of guaranteed fourth-place finish.
Brighton, reeling from a string of defeats, welcome top-four contenders Aston Villa to Falmer Stadium this Sunday, hoping to end their six-game winless streak and salvage their season.
Brighton & Hove Albion
Brighton [DLDLL] have now gone six games without a win in the Premier League after last weekend’s shocking 3-0 loss to Bournemouth. The defeat, which leaves Brighton with an aggregate 7-0 loss in the last two games, saw the Seagulls slip further away from the objective of finishing in European places.
Brighton, who have a game in hand, are in 12th place on the Premier League table, ten points adrift of the top six, having accumulated 44 points [11W, 11D, & 12L]. They go into the weekend hoping to end a five-game losing streak against Aston Villa as they look to avoid six defeats to a single opponent, having last suffered such a fate between 2019 and 2022 against Manchester United.
"We have a very tough game, but the strong motivation is to react, to play well, and to win,'' Roberto De Zerbi said in a pre-match press conference on Friday. ''We wanted to fight to reach the Europa League again and compete in a different way in the last three months, but [not being able to do so] is part of football,'' he added.
Roberto De Zerbi could leave the 4-2-3-1 formation seen against Bournemouth in place for the weekend’s game despite seeing his side concede three goals. However, Danny Welbeck is expected to reclaim the center-forward role from Mark O'Mahony, who got in from the get-go against the Cherries.
Aston Villa
Top-four hopefuls Aston Villa are in 4th place with 67 points, having gone unbeaten in four Premier League games. The Claret & Blue Army recently endured a 2-4 loss to Olympiacos in Thursday’s Europa Conference League semi-final first leg but managed a 2-2 draw with Chelsea last Saturday.
Thanks to Tottenham's 2-0 defeat to Chelsea, Villa now enjoy a seven-point cushion in the top-four. With Spurs facing another challenging fixture against Liverpool this weekend, Aston Villa could seal a guaranteed fourth-place finish if Spurs suffer defeat.
“Firstly, we have to focus again on the Premier League after we analyze the match we played yesterday,” Unai Emery said in Friday’s pre-match press conference. “We’ll be quick to analyze with the players the match we’re going to face on Sunday against Brighton, with the characteristics of their team and individual player," he added.
A 4-4-2 formation with Ollie Watkins and Jhon Durán in attack is expected. Goalkeeper Emiliano Martínez remains ruled out alongside six others.
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