Aston Villa welcome Nottingham Forest to Villa Park in a Midlands derby.
Victory will see Villa go sixth if Brighton lose elsewhere, whilst Forest can stay out of the relegation zone with a win.
Team News
Boubacar Kamara is a doubt for Aston Villa after he missed their win at Leicester in midweek due to a foot injury.
Matty Cash (muscle), Philip Coutinho (muscle) and Jed Steer (Achilles) remain absent.
Forest could be without Emmanuel Dennis after he suffered an unspecified injury in Tuesday’s defeat at Leeds.
Serge Aurier (knock) and Jesse Lingard (Achilles/knee) are doubts whilst Scott McKenna (hamstring) and Ryan Yates (shouder) could return.
Dean Henderson (muscle), Omar Richards (leg), Giulian Biancone (knee), Willy Boly (hamstring) and Chris Wood (thigh) remain absent.
When is Kick-Off?
Villa host Forest at Villa Park on Saturday 8 April in a 3pm BST kick-off, albeit untelevised in UK.
Stat Attack
- Aston Villa are unbeaten in their last five league meetings against Forest (W3, D2).
- Forest have failed to win any of their last six visits to Villa Park (D3, L3), in which they conceded two goals in each of their three recent defeats at Villa.
- 17 goals have scored across Villa’s last three matches at home against Forest, of which the Villains scored nine goals to Forest’s eight goals.
- Villa’s Ollie Watkins has scored the opening goal in three of his last four appearances, except for their 3-0 win over Bournemouth during which he failed to find the net.
- Forest have conceded five goals without scoring in two away Midlands derbies this season (L2), having lost 4-0 at Leicester and 1-0 at Wolves in October.
Prediction
Now up to seventh and in strong form under Unai Emery, Villa know that this is a huge opportunity if they’re to mount a late charge to potentially gatecrash the top-four race so a win is imperative in this type of fixture against struggling teams.
Villa though just have to keep doing what they’ve been doing lately and play with positive attacking intensity and clinical finishing, because they’re certainly on course to be right in the mix for European qualification.
Forest meanwhile have backed Steve Cooper for now but given their poor away form in Midlands derbies this season, they need to produce a huge performance because they did start well against Leeds with an early goal but were let down by moments of poor defending.
Now if Forest can just tighten up defensively and cut out their errors which has been costly in recent games, I think they might stand a chance but Villa do seem to have momentum and it is hard to see them not winning at home given their confidence.
Prediction: Aston Villa 2-1 Nottingham Forest
Result: Aston Villa 2-0 Nottingham Forest
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