Premier League preview: Swansea v Aston Villa

Aston Villa travel to Wales to take on Swansea City in search of their first Premier League away win this season.

Saturday’s fixture at the Liberty Stadium will present Alex McLeish’s side with another chance to win on their travels, with Villa having already missed opportunities at Fulham, Everton, Sunderland and QPR this term.

Villa were outplayed in Monday’s 2-0 reverse at Tottenham, and the defeat could have been much greater if it were not for the efforts of goalkeeper Shay Given.

Australian midfielder Chris Herd is fully aware that his side need to improve their away form and is hopeful it starts immediately.

“We have a massive ground and great fans at Villa Park so we are obviously good at home, we now just need to improve our away form,” Herd told the Daily Mail.

“We have to go back to the training ground, talk as a team to find out where we went wrong (against Tottenham) and try to fix those problems.”

“Hopefully we can bounce back this weekend and get a result at Swansea.”

Gabriel Agbonlahor featured for Villa against Spurs and McLeish will be counting on an improved showing from the quick forward who started the season well, and has five goals to his name this campaign.

Swansea will not be easy to beat at home though, given the fact that all three of their victories this season have come in front of their fans.

The Swans were unlucky in their 1-0 defeat to Manchester United on Saturday and manager Brendan Rodgers will take heart from their competitive display, in which they should have won a point if it were not for Scott Sinclair’s shocking miss.

“It was a good performance from us and there was plenty there that we can take into the Aston Villa game next weekend,” Rodgers said after the defeat.

Swansea, who have conceded just two goals in six home fixtures this season, are still without injured defenders Steven Caulker and Gary Tate while Villa have virtually a full-strength squad to choose from.