Aston Villa, thanks to John McGinn’s brace and Kourtney Hause’s first goal for the club, beat Nottingham Forest 3-1 on Wednesday to make it 9 points from their last 3 games.
They will be looking to make that 12 points on Saturday when Tony Pulis brings his Middlesbrough side to Villa Park.
If Dean Smith’s men can make it four wins in a row, they could see themselves move into the play-off places for the first time in a long while – the 18th of September was the last time that Villa were in the top six.
Smith’s side won 3-0 the last time these two teams met and if Villa play how they have been playing of late, we could see a similar scoreline on Saturday afternoon, especially as Middlesbrough have had a dip in form (they’ve picked up one point from their last three matches).
Here is our predicted Villa XI for Saturday’s match against Middlesbrough:
