Coventry City - Aston Villa

This is a strange one to price up, because both clubs arrive in poor shape. Coventry are back in the top flight for the first time since 2001 and the return has been brutal so far. Four league games, four defeats, zero goals scored and ten conceded, which is the worst start in the division. The 5-0 loss to Brighton was the low point, and there are injuries and a suspension to work around on top of that. Aston Villa are hardly flying either. They lost 2-1 at home to Nottingham Forest and sit down alongside Coventry near the bottom of the table, which is not where anybody expected Unai Emery to be in September. Even so, this is a squad with European nights in the legs and genuine depth, and a rotated Villa eleven should still carry far more threat than a Coventry side that has not managed a single goal all season. There is a decent story wrapped around the fixture too. These two have not met competitively in a quarter of a century, since the day Villa won 3-2 and sent Coventry down, so the home crowd will be loud and the occasion will lift the underdog. That is worth something. It does not fix a forward line that keeps drawing blanks. Taking Villa with a small handicap is the sensible way in here. A draw costs only a fraction of the stake rather than the lot, which matters in a cup tie where penalties are waiting, and any Villa win settles it.