West Brom will be without Chris Brunt, who suffered a calf injury against Bristol City, with James Morrison (hamstring) also out and Darren Fletcher (knee) a doubt.
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Alan Hutton, Adama Traore and Jordan Amavi remain sidelined.
Aston Villa striker Rudy Gestede is relishing the upcoming Midlands derby with West Bromwich Albion, and believes it has come at a good time for the struggling Villans.
Hollis, who was appointed new Villa chairman on Thursday, knows the club have to be realistic about their situation. Villa boss Remi Garde would not be drawn on the subject in his news conference on Friday.
It’s a good job West Brom’s Claudio Yacob can take a knock. “He is probably not available but I will see”.
“I am here to give my best and I expect the same of my players”.
– Rickie Lambert has scored more Premier League goals against Aston Villa than versus any other opponent (4).
Albion, who had high hopes of doing the league double over Villa in the top flight for the first time since the 1964-65 season, barely created any chances.
West Brom began the fixture on the front foot, but they were unable to create anything of note inside the penalty area as Villa displayed the same resolute qualities that have resulted in just two goals being conceded in their last four outings in all competitions ahead of this fixture.
Tough one to call and these Derby games can go anyway Aston Villa simply need to start winning games and while I am not going to take them straight up here I think that Aston Villa can definitely get somethigf from this one. They want to play in England if we are speaking about foreign players, and English players want to play in the Premier League.
Joleon Lescott and Jores Okore were Garde’s central defensive pairing for those games and the Frenchman feels he might stick with them against West brom.
Aston Villa is twentieth in the league with 12 points having won 2 games, drawn 6 and lost 14.
SAM (Sports Analytics Machine) is a super-computer created by Professor Ian McHale at the University of Salford that is used to predict the outcome of football matches.
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Probability of away win: 26%.
