Wolves v Aston Villa: Back either goalkeeper to be fouled at 13/10 | OneFootball

English Premier League Tips

Goalkeepers being fouled is spiking - here's how to profit

Wolves host Aston Villa in the Friday Night Football and Lewis Jones has spotted a niche angle based around the upsurge in goalkeepers being fouled...

Click for Wolves v Aston Villa odds hereFriday, 20:00Live on Sky Sports

Are Villa too short based on recent form?

This is an underrated derby.

Few fixtures in the Midlands carry quite the same edge as a meeting between Wolves and Aston Villa. Separated by little more than 20 miles and with lots of recent fiery past meetings in the history books, these two proud clubs don't need much encouragement to turn up the heat. And with local bragging rights on the line, this derby always arrives with an extra crackle in the air.

Aston Villa are trading at 1.97 for victory with Wolves at 4.2. That price on the away win will appeal to many punters. Villa are of course in a fantastic position to finish in the Champions League places whilst Wolves are all-but set for a return to the Championship.

However, missing Boubacar Kamara, Youri Tielemans and John McGinn, it's having a huge impact on Villa. They've been without all three in the last five games in all competitions and they have been so far away from their usual relentless and ruthless best.

Kamara, especially, provides Villa with such a void to fill. Since the start of last season - a sample size of 56 games - Villa's goals against per game goes from 1.1 with him and 1.4 without while their win percentage drops to 41% from 59%.

Villa went off favourites to win each of their last five fixtures v Leeds, Newcastle, Brighton, Bournemouth and Brentford but only landed the odds just just once and scored just four goals in total. They are a risky proposition in their current form at short odds.

English Premier League: Wolves v Aston Villa (Match Odds)

Friday 27 February, 8.00pm

When Wolves are in town play unders

Under Unai Emery, seven of eight games with Wolves has landed for under 2.5 goals backers which suggests that this is a derby which can be settled on fine margins with the atmosphere perhaps increasing the pressure on the game more than many would expect.

And the under 2.5 line is always a betting tactic to consider when Wolves and Rob Edwards are involved.

Let's be frank, they remain a turgid outfit in the final third with a real lack of Premier League quality in those key areas. Across their last 17 matches the total goals output comes in at 2.1 per 90. They have scored just 11 goals in those 17 games and have failed to score two or more in 15.

Amazingly, one of those occasions was against the best defence in Europe in Arsenal but did come against a backdrop of 0.35 worth of expected goals.

At 1.95 playing the under 2.5 line looks a great way to snatch some value on the Betfair Exchange.

English Premier League: Wolves v Aston Villa (Over/Under 2.5 Goals)

Friday 27 February, 8.00pm

Goalkeepers being fouled is on the increase

The rise of set pieces in the Premier League has changed the betting landscape in terms of how certain players, mostly centre backs are now priced tighter than ever before.

But when one door closes, another opens in the betting game in terms of angles to exploit from a upward trend. And a market I've been keeping a very close eye on offered by Betfair this season is the "any goalkeeper to be fouled market" which is priced up for this encounter.

As this is an area of the game this season which is seeing a big spike in the amount of goalkeepers being fouled due to almost every team producing inswinging corners into the six yard box and it's causing absolute chaos.

Over the previous six seasons, Premier League goalkeepers were fouled on average 0.24 times per 90.

This season it's spiked. It's gone to 0.4 fouls per game.

Some may say well it's only a 0.16 increase per game but over a season that is a huge difference. Last season there were 106 fouls on goalkeepers in 380 games. This season we're already at 106 fouls on goalkeepers in 271 games played, so we've already matched last season with another 109 games still to be played.

Betfair are offering 13/10 on any goalkeeper being fouled here and that's a bet.

Emi Martinez is getting fouled at a rate of 0.65 this season and Wolves stopper Jose Sa is getting fouled at a rate of 0.35 per game.

Martinez has been fouled seven times in his last five starts and watching him he's certainly trying to combat being put under so much pressure on his goal-line by just falling over which is very risky but referees are buying it as they do with Martinez's antics.

So, he's the best hope of this bet landing but we've also got Sa running for us too who was fouled last weekend at Palace and actually has been fouled in three of his last five starts vs Villa.

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Back any goalkeeper to be fouled @ 13/10