Everton has won three games in a row since Royle took over from Mike Walker and the Toffees have climbed out of the relegation zone.
Villa by contrast, is now two places below them. It plunged into the relegation zone by losing eight of its last nine games under Ron Atkinson and, now with Brian Little in charge, has gained just two points from two tied games.
The two teams meet at Villa Park on Saturday and Everton, with a newly formed strike partnership allied to increased work rate and fresh confidence, aims to prosper at the expense of one of the strugglers.
Of the other bottom-ranked teams, last place Ipswich goes to meet a Nottingham Forest team that recently has slipped from second to fifth, and next to last Leicester visits third place Newcastle.
Blackburn, which heads the standings by one point from defending titlist Manchester United, should profit from a home game against mid-ranking Southampton. United, eliminated from the European Champions Cup on Wednesday, visits Queens Park Rangers.
Fourth place Liverpool, which is eight points behind the leader, hopes to boost its title challenge by beating Crystal Palace at home on Sunday.
Spanish First Division
In the wake of disastrous performances in Europe, Spanish league leaders Real Madrid and Deportivo de La Coruna will likely be looking for solace from their league games this weekend against Oviedo and Sevilla.
Real Madrid plunged 2-0 Tuesday to upstart Danish side Odense Boldklub and limped out of the UEFA cup. The same night fellow league leader Deportivo de La Coruna and Athletic de Bilbao also crashed out of the UEFA cup. The results left only Barcelona alive in the Champions Cup and Zaragoza in Cup Winners Cup play.
In this week's league play Barcelona at No. 4 place with 17 points, travels to Celta on Sunday while Zaragoza -- which also shares the leadership with Madrid and Deportivo -- visits Racing de Santander.
Barcelona advanced to the Champions Cup quarterfinals a day later with a 1-1 draw at home against IFK Goteborg. Barcelona needed only a draw to advance.
But so did Real Madrid. Even a one-goal defeat would have been enough to get through to the final eight. Instead, shocking goals in the 71st and 90th minute eliminated the Spaniards to the dismay of the 50,000 fans at Bernabeu stadium.
Italian First Division
AC Parma has a good opportunity to extend its lead in the Italian soccer league, playing lowly Genoa while its four closest pursuers square off Sunday.
Second-place Juventus of Turin, trailing by one point with a game in hand, travels to Lazio of Rome, and third-place AS Roma visits Fiorentina. Lazio and Fiorentina are tied for fourth.
Current star, rejuvenated veteran Gianluca Vialli, who scored twice in last Sunday's 3-2 win over Fiorentina to top 100 career league goals has been disqualified from this week's game while Roberto Baggio is out with an injured knee.
In their places, highly touted Alessandro Del Piero, 20, will team up with Fabrizio Ravanelli. The frontline trident is likely to be completed by 17-year-old Corrado Grabbi, a high-scoring centerforward for Juve's top junior club.
Lazio will counter in the night match with its own up-and-comer: Marco Di Vaio, 18, who scored in Tuesday's 2-1 UEFA win over Turkey's Trabzonspor.
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