Aston Villa have a mountain to climb when they visit Olympiakos in the Europa Conference League semi-finals on Thursday evening.

The odds will be firmly stacked against Aston Villa when they visit the hostile and fiery confines of the Stadio Georgios Karaiskaki.

The Premier League side fought back from 2-0 down but Ayoub El Kaabi completed his hat-trick from the spot before Santiago Hezze restored Olympiakos' two-goal lead.

Unai Emery's side have given themselves a mountain to climb, especially considering they've done their best work at home in Europe.

The Villans have won six of their seven home Europa Conference League fixtures, yet they've won just two on their travels, losing to Lille and Legia Warsaw.

The Greeks may have failed to make it out of their Europa League group, but they gave West Ham a run for their money, winning 2-1 at home and losing 1-0 in London.

Despite the host's quality, there is evidence Villa can turn this tie around. Visitors Maccabi Tel Aviv, Panathinaikos and PAOK have beaten them by two or more goals in the last 12 months.

Those are sides you'd respectfully acknowledge don't have the level of quality or firepower as the Premier League's fourth-place side.

The difficulty will be balancing committing players to the attack to score goals with avoiding a catastrophe at the other end.

They've conceded in eight of 11 since the group stage started and all but one on their travels, so that could prove a tall order, making both teams to score likely.

However, we've seen Jekyll and Hyde performances from the Greek side, least not their 4-1 defeat at home to Macabbi followed by a 6-1 away win in the previous round.

We also have to consider that Villa showed considerable character against Lille in the previous round, so we think they'll be up for the fight and could still qualify.

Both teams score & over 2.5 goals

Aston Villa to win the match

Aston Villa to win the tie

Ollie Watkins to score