BURTON Albion will make the trip to Villa Park on Boxing Day hoping to pick up their first away win of the season to give the Albion fans a late Christmas present.
Aston Villa come into the game off the back of a 1-0 win away to Queens Park Rangers last Sunday with summer signing Jonathan Kodjia scoring his 8th of the season since joining from Bristol City for a fee which could rise to ÂŁ15 million.Villa currently sit 13th in the Sky Bet Championship table with 31 points from their 22 games so far. They have drawn 10 games, the second most of any Championship side with Bristol City having one more with eleven.
Villa have impressive home form this season having not lost at Villa Park with five wins and five draws proving the game will be a difficult task for the Albion.
Nigel Clough’s men will head there hoping their good play in defeats against Huddersfield Town and Newcastle United will help them in the first competitive fixture between the two sides.
Defender Ben Turner could return to the squad following his two-match suspension whilst Brewers forward Jamie Ward, a former youth player at Villa, will be hoping to return to Nigel Clough’s line-up after being on the bench against Newcastle.
The Brewers boss said ahead of the game: “Steve Bruce has a big, big job. When a club has been in decline for a period time, not just a few months but last season and maybe a bit before as well it takes some turning around. You have to stem the tide of defeats, which he has done and start building from there. But it’s still early days for him and it will take maybe 18 months – you would expect them at the end of next season to be up there challenging.”
Stephen Martin will be the man with the cards at Villa Park. The Staffordshire-based referee has given 46 yellow cards so far this season, just an average of 2.5 per game. He has also brandished two yellow cards this season which both came in the same match between Nottingham Forest and Newcastle United.
Tickets will not be available on the day for supporters and with over 2,000 Brewers fans making the trip they’ll be plenty of noise in the away end.
In order to get fans to their seats in time for kick off, the TV’s in the lower tier (Q block) concourse will be turned off 15 minutes before kick-off at Villa Park.