Aston Villa: Replicating Barnsley form versus Nottingham Forest key
By Josh Tonti
Aston Villa Football Club need short memories following third-round Carabao Cup defeat mid-week. The claret and blues return to EFL Championship action on Saturday with a home match-up against Nottingham Forest.
The fun, random quirkiness of cup action is ended. Aston Villa lost to Middlesbrough in unexciting fashion on Tuesday in the third-round. The 2-0 victory led Boro to a fourth-round draw against Premier League side AFC Bournemouth in the round-of-sixteen.
The complete list of fixtures are as follows, courtesy of BBC:
Arsenal v Norwich City
Bournemouth v Middlesbrough
Bristol City v Crystal Palace
Chelsea v Everton
Leicester City v Leeds United
Manchester City v Wolverhampton Wanderers
Swansea City v Manchester United
Tottenham Hotspur v West Ham United
The loss is both a blessing and a curse. On one hand, Villa focus entirely on league action; which, quite frankly, should be the only item of importance to Dr. Tony Xia. However, Villa lost out on an affordable chance to navigate further with several teenage prospects.
First team action for 19-year old Callum O’Hare and 18-year old Jake Doyle-Hayes will be few and far between from here on out, barring several injuries. Moreover, Villa lose the revenues from advancing further into the competition with the potential for home match-ups against Premier League sides to boot.
Not all is lost though, a clean sheet versus Forest on Saturday would make it four matches running in league play.
PROJECTED ASTON VILLA XI: (4-4-1-1): Johnstone; Elmohamady, Chester, Terry (c), Taylor; Snodgrass, Whelan, Hourihane, Adomah; Kodjia; Davis.
SUBSTITUTES: Steer, Samba, Hutton, Onomah, O’Hare, Bjarnason, Hogan.
Tough predicting a few of the injuries. There has been no update from Aston Villa in regards to Mile Jedinak’s condition since right after Barnsley. It might be safe to assume they do not know, either. Likewise, Henri Lansbury remains a question mark through a muscle injury. Tommy Elphick serves his one-match ban for his red card against Middlesbrough.
For Steve Bruce, it is a case of: “Don’t fix what’s not broken.” A 3-0 drubbing of Barnsley away brings the exact same starting eleven that dominated from the 30th-minute mark onward. Most will call it a 4-4-2, but the way Jonathan Kodjia carries the ball from Zone 11 into the attack made him more of a number ten last Saturday.
Ahmed Elmohamady continues at right back with John Terry captaining the side. Terry was absolutely incredible last Saturday with several key, calming stops.
WHEN: Saturday, September 23, 2017 12:30PM EST
WHERE: Villa Park, Birmingham
PREDICTION: 2-0 Aston Villa victory (Kodjia, Snodgrass).
With Snodgrass, Adomah, Davis, and Kodjia leading the attack, this is too much for Nottingham Forest to handle currently.