Poor Tony Pulis, Villa Are Beginning To Make A Habit Of This – Stats

Head coach Dean Smith’s Aston Villa side headed to the Riverside Stadium to face Middlesbrough in Saturday’s late kickoff.

With five negatives to take from the Nottingham Forest clash, we also had five major positives to carry forward and thankfully against the anti-football dinosaur we added four more positives.

Three goals from James Chester, Tammy Abraham and Glenn Whelan (of all people) and goalkeeper Orjan Nyland kept a much-needed clean sheet in the game.

The victory lifts Villa into eighth spot in the Championship table and we are now only three points shy of sixth placed Sheffield United who occupy the final Play-Off spot so we’re definitely heading in the right direction now and results are more beginning to match improved performances as greater confidence returns to the whole camp.

Good to see some youngsters on the bench again, it won’t be too long hopefully before we see them getting game time to bring them on, but until then another derby clash on Friday as we face West Bromwich Albion.