Aston Villa vs Brighton & Hove Albion: Premier League preview, team news, stats & head-to-head

Aston Villa lost their last Premier League meeting with Brighton 1-0 in May, having won five in a row against the Seagulls before this.

Brighton have won just one of their 14 away league games against Aston Villa (D3 L10), losing the last three in a row including a 6-1 loss last season.

Aston Villa are looking to win their final league game in consecutive calendar years for the first time since 2007/2008, following a 3-2 win against Burnley in their last game of 2023.

Brighton have lost their final game of the calendar year in just two of their seven seasons in the Premier League (W3 D2), with both defeats coming in home games against Arsenal (2020 and 2022).

Aston Villa have lost just one of their last 14 Premier League home games (W7 D6), and are unbeaten in their last eight at Villa Park since a 2-0 loss to Arsenal in August (W5 D3).

Coming into this round of matches, no team has scored the first goal in more different Premier League away games than Brighton this season (7). However, the Seagulls have only gone on to win three of these games (D2 L2).

Aston Villa have kept just two clean sheets in their last 23 Premier League games, though both of these have come in home matches (0-0 v Man Utd in October, 1-0 v Southampton earlier this month).

Aston Villa’s 3-0 loss at Newcastle last time out was their eighth Premier League defeat by 3+ goals under Unai Emery – only Paul Lambert (16) and Dean Smith (9) have lost more games by such a margin in charge of the Villans in the competition.

Aston Villa striker Ollie Watkins has scored more Premier League goals against Brighton than he has against any other opponent (6), netting a hat-trick in this exact fixture in a 6-1 win last season.

Brighton’s 14 Premier League away goals this season have been scored by 10 different players, with Danny Welbeck, João Pedro, Kaoru Mitoma and Carlos Baleba the only Seagulls to score more than once on the road (2 each).