Arsenal’s season hasn’t exactly gotten off to the best of starts, with them exiting the Champions League in the group stages and only earning one point from their first two league games.
Aston Villa, led by Carla Ward, have similarly had a sluggish start with back-to-back WSL losses. Jonas Eidevall’s team will be eager to get their season off to a strong start against Aston Villa.
Villa was “the best of the rest” the previous season, finishing in a best-ever fifth place, but since being promoted to the top division, they have a dismal record against the “Big Four,” reading W2 D3 L20.
The credential is that, in their eight such games last season, three of the better outcomes—two victories and a draw—came. Of those victories, one was at Arsenal on the road.
Villa’s terrible 2-0 loss to Liverpool last weekend raises questions, but if they had had a better start to the season, I would be finding a way to back the visitors here as Arsenal are just too erratic and undermanned.
Super Sunday is taken over by the Women’s Super League as Liverpool visit Everton and Arsenal host Aston Villa in a Merseyside derby. The finest bets are offered by Michael Beardmore.
After starting the new season with outstanding victories over Arsenal and Aston Villa, Liverpool is already demonstrating that they can surpass their very acceptable seventh-place result from their first season in the WSL.
With those wins, they have now surpassed Merseyside rivals Everton by six points. Everton has lost both of its games so far to Leicester and Brighton, which is bad news for the Toffees considering those teams faced relegation last season.
The odds of the Reds maintaining their perfect start are 4/5 top-price. I wouldn’t discourage you because I believe it to be the most likely outcome, but it seems a little too soon to predict, and the derby aspect also worries me a little because Everton will step up their game.
Given that Villa has only managed three clean sheets in 25 encounters with the “Big Four,” I believe selecting a few Arsenal goal-scorers offers the best value in this situation. Villa should concentrate on keeping Alessia Russo quiet, which should open up opportunities for other members of the red team, not least CAITLIN FOORD.
The Australian (above) appears well-priced at 12/5 TO SCORE ANYTIME with 34 goals in 95 Gunners games, seven shots attempted in two WSL games this season, and a Champions League goal to her credit.
LUCY HOPE, a Scotland midfielder/wing-back for Everton who has been one of the Toffees’ top performances for several seasons, is the subject of a pair of considerably better value pricing that I have discovered.
We can anticipate that hosts Arsenal will earn enough set-pieces to provide the Scotland center-back with opportunities. The center-back has 58 goals in 375 career appearances, scoring one per 6.5 games on average.
She tested the opposing goalkeeper eight times in 20 WSL appearances last season, and she has only done it once in two games this season out of four total shots taken.
Hope is a player that likes to get involved and is all action. Throughout the first two games, she has attempted 11 tackles and has already received a caution.
Once more considering the derby component, the price of 7/1 on HOPE TO BE SHOWN A CARD appears to be very generous. She is half that expensive elsewhere, which is more accurate given the likelihood of her being recorded in the official’s notebook.
