Thanks to the international break, Steve Bruce and his players have had two long weeks to dwell on their damaging defeats to QPR and Bolton after an easy win against league leaders Wolves.
These defeats have left Villa 7 points adrift of automatic promotion, and in the eyes of many Villa supporters, a play-off place is the best that their team can achieve now.
Next up for Villa is an away match against Hull, who are just 6 points above the relegation zone. On paper, Villa should collect a valuable three points at the KCOM Stadium, but, then again, they should really have picked up maximum points against lowly QPR and Bolton, too.
If Villa go on to lose three games in a row on Saturday, the fans will start looking over their shoulders as a continued poor run of form could even eventually see them just miss out on a coveted play-off spot.
Here is our predicted Villa XI for Saturday’s must-win match against Hull:
