Aston Villa v Ipswich Town Tip

If you’re looking for potential FA Cup upsets, Villa Park has to be as good a place to start as any. Paul Lambert’s youngsters endured a torrid Christmas programme, suffering consecutive defeats by scorelines of 8-0, 4-0 and 3-0, the latter two on their own patch.

The last Villa result, a 2-2 draw at Swansea was much better, but conceding an equaliser four minutes into injury time will have been a choker and left a sense that things are still going against them. At best odds of 31/10 (BetVictor), Ipswich are well priced to compound the misery on Saturday.

The Tractor Boys may still lurk in the lower reaches of the Championship but the general upturn in their fortunes since Mick McCarthy arrived is undeniable. The Portman Road side have clambered off the bottom and towards safety with recent wins against Forest, Bolton, Millwall, Charlton and Wolves.

The other interesting factor here is that Villa actually have a bigger knockout game on the horizon which may affect their focus and team selection. The first leg of the League Cup semi-final against Bradford is on Tuesday and that must represent a better chance of a Wembley final for a big club starved of success.