Aston Villa looks to maintain their spot in the top four when they host Manchester United at Villa Park.

Aston Villa's form has dipped over the past month and they're coming off a 3-1 loss to Chelsea in the FA Cup. Even with that bad run of form, they are still sitting in fourth place and have a great shot here to extend the gap on the pack below them.

Manchester United have hit a good run of form, beating Wolves and West Ham in back to back matches to move up to sixth place in the table. They came back from a 2-0 deficit to beat Aston Villa 3-2 in the previous meeting at Old Trafford, but Manchester United has been really poor away from home under Erik ten Hag.

Aston Villa have hit a rough patch, but the underlying numbers during this bad run haven't been that bad. In the previous meeting against Manchester United, they actually won the expected goals battle 1.7 to 1.1.

I highly doubt Villa are going to make the same mistake again that they made against Manchester United when they lost 3-2. Aston Villa was up 2-0 in that match and kept playing an incredibly high line, which allowed Manchester United to continually make runs in behind and eventually complete the comeback. Aston Villa played a low block against Chelsea in the first FA Cup match, which is encouraging as it showed that Unai Emery isn't too stubborn in his philosophies.

Aston Villa is going to build out of the back and will have Pau Torres available. He’s been massive for them this season because he is their best ball carrying and passing centerback, which allows Aston Villa’s build up to be at it’s best. Aston Villa got caught by surprise against Newcastle, who unveiled a new aggressive pressing structure against them. I highly doubt Manchester United is going to do the same because they are a completely flawed team out of possession.

Aston Villa's form at home has been almost the polar opposite of their performances on the road. At Villa Park, they have a +10.8 expected goal differential, but away from home, they have a negative expected goal differential.

Just when things are starting to go in the right direction, Manchester United loses another player to injury. Lisandro Martinez makes such a difference for Manchester United with their ability to effectively build out of the back against an opponent's press. He was excellent in doing so against Wolves and was a big reason why Manchester United had so much success in build up. Without him, Manchester United is in the same position they’ve been in for a long time.

Casemiro started, but he's not a great on-the-ball playmaker in build up, which had been Manchester United's problem for a long time and why it was better off just playing in transition. Kobbie Mainoo solved that problem by staying deep to help in build up, but that was with Martinez conducting the build up.

United lacked control against both Wolves and West Ham — conceding 3.5 expected goals — and was torched in transition.

Manchester United is allowing 1.51 npxG per 90 minutes and have only held three opponents under one expected goal this season.

Torres being back and available for Aston Villa makes such a massive difference in their ability to build out of the back. Villa have struggled in build up against elite pressing teams, but Manchester United is the furthest thing from elite out of possession.

Aston Villa does have one big vulnerability defensively — defending corners. They have allowed the highest xG per corner of anyone in the Premier League, but the good news for them is that Manchester United is the least efficient team on corners.

Given how bad Manchester United's form away from home has been this season, I think the number here on Aston Villa is too cheap.

It all comes down to one final match to crown a champion in the Africa Cup of Nation and it’s a rematch from the group stage with the host nation Ivory Coast taking on Nigeria.

Nigeria needed penalties to get by South Africa, but they have largely been the best team in this tournament. Nigeria beat the Ivory Coast in the group stage 1-0 with a masterclass on how to play a low block and limit your opponent to no high quality chances. It's been over a decade since Nigeria last won the Africa Cup of Nations and have a great opportunity here against the host nation.

It is pretty crazy that the Ivory Coast are even in this final to begin with. They have been through so much since the 4-0 loss to Equatorial Guinea in the group stage that even Hollywood couldn't write a script like this. Now they have an opportunity to get some revenge and be the first African nation since Egypt in 2006 to lift the trophy on home soil.

Nigeria have loads of attacking talent, but their defense is actually the reason that they are in the final. They have a simple but effective defensive structure that has been incredibly difficult to play through. Nigeria have allowed only one non-penalty goal for the entirety of the Africa Cup of Nations and it came in their first match of the group stage against Equatorial Guinea. It's not like they are completely fortunate to have only conceded one goal either. Nobody has created over one non-penalty expected goal against them and overall for the tournament they have only allowed 3.15 non-penalty expected goals.

They completely shut down the Ivory Coast in the previous meeting, pitching a clean sheet and holding them to 0.57 xG on 14 shots. With the Ivory Coast still not creating a high number of chances in front of net, who says the final is going to be any different? They created 1.19 xG against DR Congo, 0.81 xG against Mali and 1.3 xG against Senegal with a penalty.

Nigeria did not allow the Ivory Coast to play anything through the middle of the pitch in that previous meeting, so even though the host nation held a lot of possession, most of it was stale, circulating the ball around the Nigeria's 5-4-1 defensive block. Just take a look a they Ivory Coast's pass map from the previous match.

After the 4-0 defeat to Equatorial Guinea, the Ivory Coast did something unprecedented and sacked Jean-Louis Gasset in the middle of the tournament. They left the team in the hands of 40-year old Emerse Faé, who had only ever managed at the youth level. They were severely outplayed by Senegal, but they were awarded a late penalty to send the match to extra time and they eventually won it on penalties. Against Mali, they saved a penalty inside the first 20 minutes, went down to 10 men in the second half and scored a 90th-minute goal to send it into extra time. Then in extra time they scored in the 122nd minute to get into the semifinals. They played a very even match with the DR Congo, eventually getting here to the final.

The reality for the Ivory Coast is they haven't been that great in this tournament. What has been lacking is offensive firepower, which was a big concern coming into the tournament. The Ivory Coast have a fantastic center back pairing and three fantastic ball winning midfielders, but they don't have a lot of prolific goal scorers. They have only created 6.1 non-penalty expected goals in their six matches, plus two extra time periods because of a lack of a striker. They did absolutely nothing against Nigeria in the previous meeting and without a true attacking midfielder to play in between the lines, I don't see a scenario where things are going to drastically change this time around.

Out of possession, the Ivory Coast have been one of the most aggressive teams in terms of their high press, ranking second in PPDA and high turnovers. While that is all well and good, Nigeria consistently were playing long balls over the top to Osimhen with great success, showing that the Ivory Coast is a bit vulnerable against a super direct team like Nigeria.

The big question is what is going to drastically change in the second meeting. I say not much. The Ivory Coast don't have the attacking personnel to play in between the lines or through the middle of Nigeria's 5-4-1 low block, so they are going to be either taking shots from distance or sending in crosses, which is something they were not successful in doing in the previous match.

Nigeria are actually really comfortable conceding possession and playing in transition where they had a lot of success against the Ivory Coast and have the talent to cause a lot of problems.

The Ivory Coast closed as a +115 favorite in the first meeting and the market has clearly upgraded Nigeria from that win, but I don’t think they’ve gone far enough.

Another week and two more puzzling performances for Chelsea under Mauricio Pochettino. The Blues lost 4-1 at home to Wolves on Sunday in the league and then followed it up with a road win the FA Cup replay at Aston Villa on Wednesday, 3-1. Chelsea continue to be quite inconsistent overall and now they catch London rival Crystal Palace in an ideal spot on Monday Night Football. Palace enter this match in a bit of a mess following a 4-1 beatdown at Brighton last week in the league.

Not only did the Eagles lose that match, but they're now without key attackers Eberechi Eze and Michael Olise due to injury. Given that key center back Marc Guehi is also out for Palace, Roy Hodgson is without three of his most vital players.

With Chelsea getting healthy and players back in their attack, the market has taken a lot of Chelsea money in the last week. The key returnees for the Blues bolster the attack in a big way and the total sits a bit low for this fixture despite the Palace absences.

The absence of Guehi is a huge one for the Palace defense and being underrated by the market. Palace are sure to face a lot of pressing and ball pressure in this match against Chelsea. The Blues rank third-best at disrupting opponents build-up in the entire Premier League and Guehi is a key ball progressor for the attack. He has the second most passes into the final third for the Eagles this season and the passing range of he and Joachim Anderson is their primary skill trait.

Then there's the loss of Eze and Olise. The two only played 21 combined 90s for Palace this year and added 11 goals and four assists combined. The drop off from these two to Jordan Ayew and Jeffrey Schlupp is quite massive for the Palace attacking outlook. The Eagles are expecting to start Jean-Phillipe Mateta up top. He is averaging just 0.16 xG per 90 without penalties this season.

Ayew and Schlupp have each added 0.32 xG + xA and 0.25 xG + xA per 90 in their respective minutes this year. The drop off in quality from the fully fit front 3 of Eze/Olise/Odsonne Edouard to the likely lineup is worth almost a half goal in attacking production.

Palace were totally unable to overcome the Brighton press in the match last Saturday once Guehi went off. The Eagles totaled six penalty area touches, seven shots and 0.3 xG in the loss. Defensively, they were unfortunate to concede four goals but also lacked an outlet to move the ball up the pitch most of the match.

Chelsea were finally able to play its best attackers at the same time in the midweek victory against Aston Villa. When Nicolas Jackson is on the pitch, the Blues are producing 2.1 xG per match this year in the EPL. When he's off the pitch, the Blues' attack has produced just 1.4 xG per game.

There's a weird shape to the Blues underlying statistics this season too. It's true that if you just look at the underlying stats for the whole year, you'd see a +0.4 xG difference per 90 minutes and view the Blues as a top five or six team. But Chelsea had a big time stat padding performance against nine man Tottenham and amassed most of their elite quality data in the first half of the year. If you strip out the noise of outlier events, the Blues appear a lot more average.

If you remove penalties and red cards from the sample, Chelsea have an even expected goal differential in the last three months. Chelsea are producing 1.65 xG per 90 in that sample — and there's room for optimism now that Jackson, Cole Palmer and Christopher Nkunku can all start — but the defense has fallen off considerably.

Chelsea are conceding 1.6 xGA per match in that time frame. The defense looked considerably better when Thiago Silva wasn't in the side in the FA Cup, but that also felt like more of a matter of Villa not taking advantage of opportunities to exploit them in space.

Given their reliance on young talent, it's unsurprising to see Chelsea be quite inconsistent match to match. The defense remains flawed, but Chelsea's attack looks good on paper to plenty of chances on Monday.

Instead of backing the Blues on the inflated moneyline price and trusting their inconsistent defense, I'm backing Chelsea to score multiple times against a vulnerable Palace defense. The Eagles have always been a bend but don't break defense — they rank 17th in crosses and 15th in box entries allowed but rank in the top half in xGA conceded.

They've pulled that off in part because the Eagles had elite center back health and chemistry. Now that Guehi is out and the Eagles lack an outlet with Eze or Olise to break the pressure, Chelsea will exploit the holes in the defense and score multiple times with their best attacking lineup available.