---
title: "Predicted Starting XI To Play Against Birmingham City"
canonical: "https://readastonvilla.com/2016/10/28/predicted-starting-xi-play-birmingham-city/"
type: "post"
language: "en-GB"
author: "Sheldon Muchmore"
section: "Aston Villa Match Previews"
published: "2016-10-28T07:20:46Z"
modified: "2016-10-28T07:20:46Z"
---

# Predicted Starting XI To Play Against Birmingham City

The biggest game of Steve Bruce’s short tenure is fast approaching; the Second City derby against Villa’s fiercest rivals Birmingham City.

Bruce’s Villa career has got off to an absolute flier with two wins and a draw from his opening three games. These seven points from a possible nine have pushed Villa up to 16th; only six points below a play-off position and nine points off of automatic qualification.

Villa fans have been waiting for Birmingham to get promoted for years so that the derby matches would return. However, since this never happened the Villa players came up with the ingenious plan to get relegated so that they could give their loyal fans what they have been waiting for for so long

A win against Bruce’s old club on Sunday could, depending on other results, push Villa up to tenth place in the table. To add to this, it would be the first time since April 2010 that they have won three games on the bounce.

Whilst Villa have been on a decent run of form, Birmingham have lost two of their last three games with their most recent result being a 2-0 loss to newly promoted Burton Albion.

Despite these two quick losses, it will still be a tricky and tense match. A proper derby, and don’t we just love it.

Here is our predicted Villa starting XI. We reckon Bruce will go with a 4-5-1 formation again.