Sunday high noon brings us the Second City derby between Birmingham City and Aston Villa at St Andrews and along with the usual bragging rights, there’s also a very important three points at stake for both clubs and just two points separate the two teams ahead of this fierce local derby.
Birmingham City appear to have the slight edge over their crosstown rivals as they occupy 8th place and are sitting on 50 points, but they’ve produced mixed results in recent times as they’ve recorded away wins at QPR and Bristol City, but have also tasted defeat at home with a loss to Bolton Wanderers and away at Hull City last weekend.
Overall form at St Andrews has been fairly steady though for The Blues who have suffered just three defeats on home soil all season, although the hosts have picked up just one win from their last five matches which was a 2-0 win over Nottingham Forest.
In addition, the strike pairing of Adams (21 goals) and Jutkiewicz (10 goals) have been in fine goalscoring form this season, but the latter has scored just 1 goals from his last 23 appearances in all competitions.
8 of Birmingham’s 17 home matches have produced under 2.5 goals and leading goalscorer, Che Adams, is likely to receive close attention on Sunday lunchtime.
Aston Villa ended a run of five matches without a win in the Championship last time out when they registered a much needed 4-0 home win against Derby County, with the margin of the win raising a few eyebrows as Villa ran rampant at Villa Park.
Sunday’s clash at Birmingham City though represents a totally different prospect, particularly as it’s a local derby and away from home too, as Dean Smith’s side look to record their first away win in this calendar year with their last success being a 1-0 win at Swansea City on Boxing Day.
With just four wins on the road all season along with six defeats puts Villa on the back foot here, but they do hold a good record against The Blues in derby matches having won four of the last six meetings between these two sides, which incidentally, have all been registered at Villa Park.
Aston Villa are the highest goalscorers at home in the Championship with 41 goals, but on their travels the visitors’ results have been far more circumspect as 9 of their 17 away matches to date have resulted in under 2.5 goals.
5 of the last 7 meetings between these two sides have resulted in under 2.5 goals while 4 of the last 5 meetings at St Andrews have also seen the under come in too. Sunday’s clash may well be another low-scoring affair.