Aston Villa made it three league wins in a row last weekend when they beat Nottingham Forest 1-0 at the City Ground.
This win moved Villa up to fourth in the table and, after despite having a pretty lean December (one win, three draws, and two losses), they are still just five points away from an automatic promotion spot.
Next up for Villa is a home match against Barnsley on Saturday afternoon. The Tykes have been struggling this season, and they currently find themselves twenty points below Villa and just three points above the relegation zone.
Many will be expecting an in-form Villa to achieve a comfortable win on Saturday, but Barnsley have made themselves hard to beat recently – they have only lost once in their last six matches.
If Villa do go on to win and other results go their way, they could find themselves just two points away from automatic promotion.
Here is our predicted XI for Saturday’s game against Barnsley.
GK: Sam Johnstone
Bruce doesn’t have to think twice about this one.
RB: Ahmed Elmohamady
Has been getting a decent run in the team and we don’t expect that to stop this weekend.
CB: James Chester
Has been excellent for Villa this season, and there’s no way he will be sitting out of this one.
CB: John Terry
Had a poor game against Peterborough, but he put that aside and was immense last weekend against Forest. Will certainly be starting this one.
LB: Alan Hutton
Hutton has been solid the whole season and we reckon he will be rewarded with yet another start on Saturday.
RM: Robert Snodgrass
Snodgrass has been on fire in the last few games, and we’d be very surprised to see him dropped/rested for the game at the weekend.
CM: Glenn Whelan
With Jedinak likely to be out injured again, it will fall to Whelan to do the dirty work in the middle of the park.
CM: Conor Hourihane
Barnsley will likely sit back and look to defend, so Bruce will be hoping that Hourihane can use his creativity to unlock them.
CM: Jack Grealish
Since coming back into the team, Grealish has been a breath of fresh air. He will most certainly be starting on Saturday.
LM: Albert Adomah
Has gone of the boil a tiny bit lately, but there’s still no way that he miss out on a start at the weekend.
ST: Scott Hogan
With two goals in his last two games, Bruce will give Hogan another start this weekend in the hope that he can boost his confidence further.