The games come thick and fast in the Championship and Villa travel to Barnsley on Saturday evening hoping to get back to winning ways.
Thanks to their 1 win, 4 draws and 2 losses from their opening seven matches, Villa find themselves sitting 18th in the table with just 7 points, already a sizeable 10 points adrift of Leeds at the top of the table.
Therefore, this makes this next match against Barnsley a must win if Villa are to have any realistic hope of challenging for promotion come the end of the season. Being a possible 13 points behind the leaders after 8 games of the season is not what any Villa fan would have envisioned at the beginning of August.
This game has added importance to Bruce as another poor result here could see him be relieved of his duties.
Barnsley currently also have 7 points, but they have played one less game than Villa.
Here’s our predicted XI for Saturday’s match away to Barnsley.
