Aston Villa welcome West Ham United to Villa Park on Sunday afternoon (14:30) with the teams separated by just two points in the Premier League table.

Unai Emery’s side were involved in their first stalemate of the season before the international break when they were held to a 1-1 draw away at Wolves.

Meanwhile, West Ham shared the spoils in a four-goal thriller against Newcastle United, and their only losses so far have come at the hands of Liverpool and Manchester City.

Team News

Emiliano Buendia and Tyrone Mings remain two long-term absentees for Villa, while Jacob Ramsey continues to recover from an ankle issue.

Meanwhile, West Ham will assess the fitness of Edson Alvarez and Michail Antonio following international duty, and it remains to be seen whether Lukazs Fabianski will feature here after missing the game against Newcastle due to a knock.

Match Odds

Aston Villa are favourites for the game at 5/6, while the Hammers are 11/4 to take the three points back to the capital, and the draw is also the same price.

West Ham won 1-0 away at Villa Park last season, and a repeat of that scoreline is 14/1.

Ollie Watkins has been in fine form this season – he’s 11/10 to score anytime and 7/2 to be first or last goalscorer.

Draw and both teams to score (yes) @ 10/3

I think this is a difficult game to call.

Both sides are in excellent form – Villa have won each of their last 10 matches at home, while West Ham are currently on a four-game unbeaten run, and as mentioned above, the Hammers have only tasted defeat this season against Manchester City and Liverpool.

However, David Moyes’ side have only managed to keep a clean sheet against Sheffield United so far, not to mention their backline was breached in 16 of their 19 top-flight road trips last term.

While Villa’s run of form at home is impressive, it’s impossible to ignore how good West Ham have been in recent weeks so I think the teams could share the spoils on Sunday.

Ollie Watkins to score anytime @ 11/10

The Aston Villa marksman has had eight goal involvements across eight Premier League appearances so far (four goals and four assists), and he scored his third international goal in England’s 1-0 victory over Australia last Friday.

He looks to be going from strength-to-strength under the guidance of Unai Emery, and he’ll fancy his chances of scoring here against a West Ham side that have struggled for clean sheets this campaign.