Dean Smith and his men will barely have time to digest their exhilarating (if you’re a neutral) 5-5 draw against Nottingham Forest on Wednesday evening as they now have to prepare for a tricky away match against Middlesbrough on Saturday evening.
In an ideal world, with three difficult games in the space of six days, Smith would rotate his squad, but this is not an ideal world, and Villa currently have Albert Adomah, Birkir Bjarnason, Mile Jedinak, Henri Lansbury, Keinan Davis, and Rushian Hepburn Murphy all nursing injuries.
Smith will be forced into making at least one change as Alan Hutton is suspended for this match after picking up his fifth booking against Nottingham Forest on Wednesday.
Middlesbrough are currently sitting 3rd in the table, 7 points above Villa in 8th place. The home side has the tightest defence in the league, having conceded just ten goals in 19 matches, so Villa will need their attack to be on point if they are to get anything from this match.
Here is our predicted XI for Saturday’s match at the Riverside.
