Aston Villa’s 11-match home winning streak came to an end on Sunday when the Villans dropped a 1-0 decision to Everton in the Premier League. They won’t have any time to rue their loss, though, as they have to travel to Istanbul for a critical Europa League match against Fenerbahçe. A win and a draw between Stuttgart and Roma would clinch a top-eight spot with one week still to play.
The match will kick off at 12:45 p.m. ET (8:45 p.m. local) on Thursday at the Şükrü Saracoğlu Stadium, on the Asian side of Türkiye’s largest city.
The Yellow Canaries are +145 favorites to win at DraftKings Sportsbook, and Villa is +170. There are +265 odds that the teams will split the points.
Fenerbahce vs. Aston Villa prediction, pick
The Villans have had a fairly comfortable go of it in the Europa League, settling at third in the table through the first six weeks of matches, and the only setback they suffered came all the way back in October, when they lost to Go Ahead Eagles thanks to a heroic performance from the Dutch side’s goalkeeper. With a comfortable matchup next week against RB Salzburg, which has effectively already been eliminated, Villa doesn’t absolutely have to win on Thursday and could instead choose to focus on its Sunday away date with Newcastle United. That’s not quite true of Fenerbahçe, which is in a comfortable position to advance on 11 points — four clear of 25th-place Dinamo Zagreb — but will surely be motivated to fight for a top-eight place.
On paper, the Villans have a deeper squad. Though star goalkeeper Emiliano Martínez, who ranks second with a 74.6% save percentage in the Premier League, has been ruled out, backup Marco Bizot has made 94.7% of his save opportunities in his three Europa League starts. Up ahead, it’s mostly been Donyell Malen leading the scoring in the Europa League, but Villa has arguably even more talented options waiting in the wings in Morgan Rogers and Ollie Watkins, who have been integral to the team’s rise to third in the Premier League standings. All in all, even with Watkins featuring mostly as a substitute in the Europa League, the Villans still rank second in on-target percentage, seventh in shots on target per 90 minutes, and third in fouls won. They haven’t been quite as solid defensively, allowing the 17th-most shots on target and recording the fewest tackles plus interceptions, but that’s in part because they’ve relied on younger talent instead of opting for veterans Matty Cash and Lucas Digne.
The Yellow Canaries have enough talent to take advantage of Aston Villa’s occasionally porous back line. They have among the strongest scoring fronts in Europe, as Kerem Aktürkoğlu and Talisca have each smashed home four goals in the Europa League, and Talisca and Marco Asensio each rank among the top six goal scorers in the Süper Lig. Almost all of Fenerbahçe’s top players have experience in Europe’s top five leagues, and Asensio (Real Madrid) and Ederson (Manchester City) have each won the Champions League. In fact, the Villans should be rather familiar with both Asensio and Jáder Durán, who were both part of the 2024-25 squad in Birmingham. Ederson has been strong, saving 75% of his opportunities in the Europa League and 69.4% in the Süper Lig. All in all, the Yellow Canaries rank eighth in the Europa League in shots on target per 90 minutes while allowing the fourth-fewest on the other end. They’ve also recorded more tackles than Villa while committing the fewest fouls of any team.
If Unai Emery starts his strongest healthy players and trusts Rogers, Watkins, Cash, and Digne, the Villans should probably win, but given the severe injuries that both John McGinn and Boubacar Kamara suffered recently, it’s hardly a guarantee that Emery will want to risk his most important players in a less-than-critical match. Plus, the atmosphere in Turkish stadiums is notoriously difficult for any visitor, and Fenerbahçe has only drawn thrice at home all season: once to fellow Istanbul giant Galatasaray, once to Hungarian giants Ferencváros in a game that the Yellow Canaries thoroughly dominated, and once to Alanyaspor in September. Villa has had a couple of disappointing results on the road, including a 4-1 thrashing at the hands of Arsenal on December 30. Fenerbahçe isn’t of the Gunners’ quality, but it doesn’t have to be to eke out all three points.
