While City have been much improved since their last away trip saw them embarrassed by Southampton, I'm not interested in going near the 8/15 about them adding to Villa's woes here.
Paul Lambert's men appear to be on the upturn having drawn at Everton and beaten West Ham prior to a late defeat at Arsenal last time out.
They remain in the bottom three and City's class should really tell but it's worth noting that the visitors have won only six of their 13 away games thus far.
Teams they've failed to beat include QPR, West Ham and Sunderland. With a much-changed team they also lost at home to Monday's opponents in the League Cup.
If you do fancy a City win, getting with them to do so 'to nil' would appear to be better value at 13/8.
They've won plenty of games that way so far in 2013. One of those was last week against Chelsea but they were fortunate to do so - Frank Lampard missed a penalty remember - and Kolo Toure failed to convince in central defence.
With Vincent Kompany again likely to be missing, that's not for me.
Instead I'm going with a tried-and-tested formula by turning to Villa's one top-class act, Christian Benteke.
The Belgian has 18 goals in a struggling side this season. To put that into context, that tally is five more than the top scorer in the Man City squad.
He's proved to be a class apart from his team-mates and has now scored 11 of Villa's 26 league goals. To put it another way, 42 per cent.
Benteke's recent form is particularly strong and it is worth noting that he has scored the first goal in four of Villa's last seven matches. He's 9/1 to add to that statistic in this game but given the quality of the opposition, that's not the market I want to play.
Instead I suggest backing the 4/1 on offer about Benteke scoring Villa's first goal, something he has done in five of those seven games I mentioned.
The stats show Benteke is clearly Villa's most likely scorer - he also takes penalties - so I just don't think he should be on offer in this market at 4s. It looks worth a small play.
Verdict: Aston Villa 1 Manchester City 2
- The match is being televised live in the UK on Sky Sports.
Win £70 from your £10 free bet if City win 2-1!
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