Nottingham Forest vs. Aston Villa Betting Tips: Williams can rack up the passes at the City Ground

Monday Night Football is live from the City Ground this week as Nottingham Forest host Aston Villa. We’ve previewed the game and provided you with two bets that we like the look of.

Steve Cooper’s side will be looking to end a run of five consecutive league defeats on Monday with Forest currently sitting bottom of the Premier League table. Villa also arrive here on a rather poor run of form having won just one of their last six, currently occupying 14th place. 

Forest have conceded at least three goals in all of their last four matches, with their latest defeat coming seven days ago to Leicester where they went down 4-0. Despite that poor result in the East Midlands derby Steve Cooper signed a new contract with the club last week and will be desperate to turn this run around.

Steven Gerrard will have been disappointed with the 0-0 draw against 10-man Leeds in their most recent top-flight outing. It’s been a rather mixed start to the campaign for Villa, who have only conceded once in their last three, with Under 2.5 goals landing in all of those.

The home side could make several changes ahead of this game with Joe Worrall expected to come back into the defence at the expense of either Steve Cook or Scott McKenna. Remo Freuler and Emmanuel Dennis are both pushing for starts.

Emi Buendia could be in line for a rare start for Villa after Gerrard was quoted saying he will get opportunities in the coming weeks. Lucas Digne, Diego Carlos, Ludwig Augustinsson and Boubacar Kamara are all confirmed absentees for the visitors.

The first selection we are touting this evening comes via the Bet Builder feature on bet365 where we are backing Forest forward Taiwo Awoniyi to have Over 1.5 shots in the match as well as Over 0.5 shots on target. This is available at 23/20 with bet365 compared to just 4/6 over at Betfair and Paddy Power.

The Nigerian has scored two goals so far for his new employers since making the move from Union Berlin where he scored 15 Bundesliga goals last season. The 25-year-old is averaging 2.7 shots per 90 minutes this campaign and with this bet landing in three of his four starts this campaign, including last week in the 4-0 loss to Leicester, we think it’s got a strong chance of landing again on home soil against Villa.

Remaining with bet365 for our second bet of the evening and we like the look of Neco Williams in the player passes market, with Over 45.5 being the line we are having a dabble on at 4/1. With Aston Villa generally sitting quite deep this season we are expecting Forest to be very much on the front-foot from the off.

This should give the attacking-minded Williams a license to get forward, and he has in fact recorded 2+ shots in all of his four home matches so far this term. This season Williams is averaging 40.25 passes per game, and after totals of 45 and 57 against Bournemouth and Spurs in home matches this season, Over 45.5 looks within his capabilities against Villa at a tempting 4/1.