Aston Villa v West Ham team news & stats

Mark Holmes 24 Dec 2015 11:02 AM

Micah Richards: Should play in central defence, says Wilkins

Aston Villa have won only one of their last 14 games on Boxing Day going into their Premier League clash with West Ham at Villa Park.

Team news

Aston Villa remain without Micah Richards, who continues to struggle with a knee injury, and so could be unchanged from their 1-1 draw at Newcastle United last weekend.

Andy Carroll could return for West Ham after missing their draw at Swansea City with a thigh injury, but none of Dimitri Payet (ankle), Winston Reid, Victor Moses (both hamstring), Diafra Sakho and Manuel Lanzini (both thigh) are yet fit enough to feature.

Opta stats

Both Aston Villa and West Ham have failed to score in three of the last four meetings between the two sides.
West Ham have won just one of their last eight trips to Villa Park in the Premier League (W1 D2 L5), failing to score in five of the games in that run.
Nikica Jelavic has scored in three of his four Premier League starts against Aston Villa.
Aston Villa have won just one of their last 14 Premier League games played on Boxing Day (W1 D4 L9).
The Villans have failed to score in their last four Premier League matches on Boxing Day.
Aston Villa are bottom of the top-flight division at Christmas for the third time in their history. They were bottom on Christmas Day in 1935-36 and 1958-59 and were relegated on both those occasions.
The team that were bottom of the Premier League at Christmas in the last two seasons has stayed up (Leicester City in 2014-15 and Sunderland in 2013-14). The only other team to do this in the Premier League era were West Brom in 2004-05.
West Ham have drawn their last three Premier League games 0-0 – the first time they’ve been involved in three successive goalless draws in the league.
Only on three previous occasions have a team drawn four successive Premier League games 0-0; Arsenal (Feb 2009), Spurs (Feb 2001) and Arsenal (Oct 1993).
The Hammers have failed to score in over half of their 19 Premier League away games in 2015 so far (10).