Aston Villa V Stoke City: Clubs Battle to Avoid Relegation

The weekend of October 3^rd and 4^th is a big one in European football, featuring a high-profile match in nearly every top-flight soccer league. In the English Premier League, Manchester United and Arsenal will do battle. In the German Bundesliga, Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund will face off. In the Spanish La Liga, Atletico and Real Madrid will play a crosstown rivalry grudge match. And in the Dutch Eredivisie, Ajax and PSV Eindhoven will challenge one another for bragging rights.

Amidst all of these headline-worthy matches between top title contenders, the Premier League also has one fixture on the other end of the spectrum this weekend. The match in question is Aston Villa V Stoke City, both clubs have experienced hugely disappointing seasons so far this fall and are both either in the relegation zone or very close to it. When they play one another on Saturday, October 3^rd, they'll be playing not so much for bragging rights or title hopes, like all of the teams listed above. Instead, they'll be fighting for survival.

Aston Villa: Lots of Young Talent, Not Enough Experience

Of the two soccer clubs, Aston Villa have had the worse run in the 2015 2016 Premier League. Manager Tim Sherwood, who replaced Paul Lambert midway through the 2014 2015 campaign mixed things up a lot over the summer. Sherwood's idea was to get a lot of new blood on the field at Aston Villa and figure out how to rebuild the embattled football club from the inside out. In pursuit of that goal, Sherwood released many of Aston Villa's older players from their contracts and brought in a dozen new transfers.

So far, his gamble isn't paying off.

Indeed, in the first seven weeks of play, the Lions have only won one of their matches. Aston Villa started the season off right, beating AFC Bournemouth in their first fixture of the 2015 2016 campaign. Rudy Gestede, a striker who came to Aston Villa from the Blackburn Rovers during the summer, scored the goal that made the 1-0 victory possible.

Since then, the Lions have looked half-formed, picking up four losses and managing just one draw. So far, they've shown moments of brilliance but just can't seem to play a complete game of football.

On August 29^th, for instance, new transfer Scott Sinclair scored two goals to give Aston Villa the lead against Sunderland. The opposing team equalized the score in the second half to draw the game 2-2. On September 13^th, the Lions were up 2-0 against Leicester City but conceded three goals in the last 20 minutes to lose the match. And this past weekend, Rudy Gestede managed a brilliant brace in the second half of an away fixture against Liverpool. It was a solid effort, but Aston Villa were playing catch-up the whole match after Liverpool's James Milner scored a goal just 66 seconds into the proceedings. A brace from Daniel Sturridge ensured that the Reds sent the Lions home with a 2-3 loss.

Stoke City: An Underwhelming Start

Where Aston Villa have picked up five losses so far this season, Stoke City have only lost three times. They've picked up an additional three draws (with Leicester City, Norwich City, and Tottenham Hotspur), and won their first match this past weekend, a 2-1 victory against AFC Bournemouth.

Those stats put Stoke two points ahead of Aston Villa (six points versus four) and keep them just outside of the relegation zone (the two clubs are ranked 17^th and 18^th, respectively). Still, these two clubs should be pretty evenly matched for their October 3^rd head-to-head match. Last season, they split their head-to-head fixtures, with Aston Villa winning in the fall and Stoke winning in the spring. Stoke City were a better team last year: they finished the season in ninth place, whereas the Lions ended the year in 17^th. Now that the two soccer clubs are both fighting to avoid relegation, their head-to-head battle should be even more competitive.

Which football club do you think will escape the relegation zone this weekend? Will new Aston Villa players like Sinclair and Gestede score enough goals to net the Lions a reprieve? Or will Stoke City replicate their away win from the spring? Pick up an Aston Villa shirt 2015 2016 from Soccer Box to get ready for the match, then link up with us on social media to share your predictions for this weekend's football games! You can find Soccer Box on multiple social networking platforms including Twitter, Pinterest, and LinkedIn.