Aston Villa are unbeaten in the Steve Bruce era, with two wins and two draws. Last weekend’s match against Birmingham City wasn’t great, but getting a draw on a visit to St. Andrew’s is always respectable. Now, with the international break looming, Villa have the chance to make it three wins from five and eleven points from fifteen against Blackburn Rovers.
And for all the trouble that Villa were in during Roberto Di Matteo’s reign, the club have only one loss in their last ten matches. It’s hardly been an inspiring start to the season, but it’s one that leaves Villa in a position to get back into the playoff race pretty quickly. And winning in front of the claret and blue faithful at VP before taking a week off would be an amazing way to keep the momentum going.
Let’s look at it another way: if Villa win today, they’ll have eleven points in Bruce’s first five matches. He came into the club when they had ten points and eleven matches played. If Villa keep up the 2.2-point-per-match pace for his 35 matches in charge, the club would end on 87 points, generally good for 3rd or 4th in this league.
Any one of us would take that in a heartbeat. So let’s get a win and keep this going. UTV!
Location: Villa Park, Birmingham, England
Kick-off time: 3 PM BST, 11 AM Eastern, 8 AM Pacific
Available TV: None
Available streaming: None
Available radio: BBC WM 95.6 FM (not online), AVTV (If audio doesn’t work, try using Safari)
Other listings are available from livesoccertv.com.
Aston Villa squad
Team news: Here's our first XI + subs to face @Rovers in #AVLBLB this afternoon. What's your verdict on the line-up? #AVFC pic.twitter.com/C3KRDyaMuL
— Aston Villa FC (@AVFCOfficial) November 5, 2016
Blackburn squad
Rovers have named an unchanged XI for this afternoon's match against Aston Villa. pic.twitter.com/I5Bo99QY3l
— Blackburn Rovers (@Rovers) November 5, 2016