We look ahead to Sunday’s FA Cup game at Deepdale with our Preston vs Aston Villa prediction and preview. Can the Championship side cause an upset?
Preston vs Aston Villa Stats: The Key Insights
Aston Villa are expected to reach the semi-finals of the FA Cup, with the Opta supercomputer giving them a 65.9% chance of winning inside 90 minutes.
Villa have won each of their last four FA Cup quarter-final matches, with this their first since 2015.
Preston North End have won just one of their last 15 meetings with Villa in all competitions (D9 L5).
Preston North End are the only lower-league team left in the FA Cup, and they will hope to cause an upset in the quarter-finals against Aston Villa.
Twenty-four places separate the teams in the Football League, though they are two of the four sides left in the competition to have previously had their hands on the trophy.
Go Deeper
Preston have beaten Charlton Athletic, Wycombe Wanderers and Burnley to reach the last eight for the first time since 1965-66, with Villa the first Premier League side standing in their way this term.
However, they have struggled against top-flight opposition in the past, losing 18 of their last 19 FA Cup games against such opponents.
The only exception in this run came back in 2007-08, when they beat Derby County 4-1 in the fourth round.
Preston will still feel confident, though; they are unbeaten in their last 15 games across all competitions at Deepdale (W6 D9) and haven’t conceded more than one goal in any match during this run (nine conceded overall).
A road trip will not have been Villa’s first choice. They have won just one of their last eight away games in the FA Cup (D2 L5), beating Middlesbrough 1-0 in last season’s third round. Villa have also lost nine of their last 15 away games in all competitions.
All of their previous matches in this year’s competition have come at home, where they’ve beaten West Ham, Tottenham and Cardiff City. They’re in their first quarter-final since 2014-15, when they were losing finalists to Arsenal.
Regardless of their recent struggles on the road, Villa will fancy their chances at Deepdale. They have won each of their last four FA Cup quarter-finals, including a 2-0 victory over West Brom in 2014-15.
And they have a forward in their squad who relishes a cup outing. Marco Asensio has been involved in nine goals (6 goals, 3 assists) across his last seven starts in his league’s primary cup competition (Copa del Rey, Coupe de France and FA Cup), including netting both goals in Villa’s win over Cardiff.
Preston vs Aston Villa Head-to-Head
Both Preston and Aston Villa have progressed from three of the six previous FA Cup ties between the sides, with this their first meeting since a 1-0 win for the Villans in January 1967.
Preston have won just one of their last 15 meetings with Villa in all competitions (D9 L5), a 2-0 victory in the Championship in October 2016.
Each of the last three matches between the sides have finished in a draw, most recently 1-1 at Deepdale in December 2018.
Preston vs Aston Villa Prediction
Villa are heavy favourites to win this one, with Unai Emery’s side winning 65.9% of the pre-match simulations in 90 minutes.
Preston, meanwhile, are given just a 15.6% chance of reaching the semi-finals at Wembley via a victory in regulation time. There is an 18.5% chance this game will go to extra-time and potentially penalties.
Opta Power Rankings
The Opta Power Rankings are a global team ranking system. They assign an ability score to over 13,000 domestic football teams. This score is on a scale between zero and 100, where zero is the worst-ranked team in the world and 100 is the best team in the world.
Ahead of kick-off this weekend, here is the Opta Power Ranking for both sides.
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