Aston Villa-Nottingham Forest, Sheffield United-Wolverhampton

We’re at the top of the stretch for the 2023-24 Premier League season and every race is still up for grabs.

Only four points separate Liverpool, Manchester City and Arsenal at the top of the table, while there are three teams (Aston Villa, Tottenham and Manchester United) within five points in the hunt for a spot in the top 4. 

The battle to avoid relegation is also still in flux as Luton Town (20 points) is chasing Everton (20 points), Nottingham Forest (24 points), Crystal Palace (25 points) and Brentford (25 points).

Adding further drama to the survival race is the fact that Everton is currently appealing its 10-point deduction for breaching financial fair play regulations.

If the Toffees win in court, they’d almost certainly avoid the drop. 

All of this to say it should be a terrific stretch run in England’s top division, and this weekend sets up wonderfully for bettors looking to back a couple of big prices:

Aston Villa at Nottingham Forest

(Saturday, 10 a.m. ET)

According to preseason projections and odds, no team has beaten expectations more than Aston Villa.

Unai Emery has completely reinvented the Villans into a high-event outfit that does its best work in back-and-forth contests.

The change in identity has clearly paid off for Villa, but things are trending down of late thanks to a host of injuries to the backline.

With injuries piling up and the team’s form dipping, Villa has posted a 3-1-3 record with a +3 goal difference over its last seven matches.

That is the same exact record (although with a +2 goal difference) that Nottingham Forest has put up in its first seven matches under new manager Nuno Espirito Santo.

Forest may not have the talent and depth to keep pace with Villa over the course of an entire season, but in the immediate term there really is not that much separating these two clubs when you consider the injury situation for the Villans.

The Tricky Trees, led by creative forces Taiwo Awoniyi, Anthony Elanga and Morgan Gibbs-White, have the ability to ask some serious questions of this banged-up Villa defense on Saturday.

Recommendation: Nottingham Forest (+500, Caesars) 

Sheffield United at Wolverhampton

(Sunday, 8:30 a.m. ET)

After Aston Villa, no team has defied preseason expectations more than Wolverhampton.

A club thought to be in crisis before the season, Wolves have been steadily surging up the table for months and have collected some impressive wins over Tottenham, Chelsea and Manchester City along the way. 

Wolves manager Gary O’Neil deserve buckets of credit for the way they’ve performed this season and these odds certainly reflect that they’re getting it.

Sheffield United has been abject all year and may go down as the first team in Premier League history to allow 100 goals in a season, but it’s really hard to get around to Wolves being a -215 favorite.

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As well as Wolverhampton has played this season, this is still a squad for which the whole is greater than a sum of its parts, and there isn’t the kind of talent gap between these two sides that would make you comfortable that Wolves can get the margin needed to justify this price.

Don’t get me wrong, Wolverhampton is a much better team than Sheffield United but this price is reflective of a team at the peak of its market rating and another at the low point.

If you squint, you can see some marginal improvements from Sheffield United since Chris Wilder returned as manager, and its -3.3 expected goal difference over their last seven matches is not nearly as bad as its -12 goal difference.

Some positive regression should come for the Blades, who have already defeated the Wolves this season.

It’s ugly, but it’s the right bet to make.

Recommendation: Sheffield United (+650, BetRivers)