Wigan Athletic v Aston Villa Betting Tips: Villans to secure back-to-back victories

Neither of these sides are having particularly memorable seasons with Wigan Athletic now looking unlikely to avoid relegation whilst Aston Villa have failed miserable in their first season outside of the Premier League.

Wigan have been on a bad run recently with just one win in their last five which means that they are still down in the relegation zone and five points off safety. The appointment of new manager Graham Barrow hardly looks like it will make a difference.

Going forward has been a humongous problem for the Lactics this season and they are the Championship’s lowest scorers with a pathetic 31 in 37 matches and have only found the back of the net twice in their last six games. They have been pretty sound at the back and their record of just 42 against is in fact the eighth-best in the division whilst they have also kept clean sheets in half of their last four matches.

The 2013 FA Cup winners are having a nightmare at home this season and have the worst record in the division with just 15 points taken from 18 matches whilst they have won just one league match at the DW Stadium since 27th September 2016. Furthermore, they have only scored 12 goals on home turf so far this campaign.

Villa looked in serious trouble until the end of February and had failed to win a single match in ten attempts, losing eight of them. However, they have now boosted themselves up to 12th in the table after a run of four win in five matches.

Steve Bruce has once again managed to make his side defensively sound with each of those aforementioned four victories coming with a clean sheet, meaning that Villa’s goals against record is a very respectable 39. The Villains have had a bit of a problem in the final third over the course of the season and have the fifth-worst goal-scoring record in the league, however, they have scored two goals in their last three wins.

However, a negative going into this match is Villa’s away form which has seen them lose seven of the last eight on the road in all competitions and their overall record of 14 points from 19 games outside of Villa Park is a poor return.

Despite Villa’s away form, I expect them to take their new-found confidence into this match at Wigan and come out on top, probably to nil given the Lactics’ goal-scoring record, but a straight Villa win is well worth getting on at 33/20.

Read more from Thomas here.