David Prutton reckons the misery will continue for Steve Bruce’s side.
Sky Sports pundit David Prutton has written in his weekly predictions column that he is expecting Aston Villa to lose a fourth game on the spin as they host Preston North End on Saturday.
Villa are suffering dearly without their top scorer Jonathan Kodjia, who is at the Africa Cup of Nations with Ivory Coast.
Without the summer signing, they have lost three games on the spin in all competitions, failing to score in any of those matches.
That has seen the gap between themselves and the final play-off spot widen to 10 points, a considerable deficit at this stage of the season.
Villa desperately need to get back on track with victory over former star Simon Grayson and his Preston team on Saturday if they are serious about being in top-six contention in four months’ time.
However, pundit and former midfielder Prutton believes they are in for a hard-time against high-flying Preston, and predicted that Villa would suffer a 2-1 defeat in front of their own fans.
Prutton wrote for Sky Sports: “Preston are a tricky team and are having another season of consolidation. Simon Grayson won’t say anything other than that, like he has secret ambitions for the play-offs, or something like that.
“They have already beaten Villa this season so they certainly understand who they are coming up against. Rudy Gestede has left Villa and Jonathan Kodjia has gone to the Africa Cup of Nations, changing the focal point of their attack and they now have no wins in four.
“It’s a tough one for Villa and I fancy Preston to go there and do a number on them.”
That makes grim reading for Villa fans. Whilst Steve Bruce and club owner Tony Xia scramble desperately to make much-needed additions to their squad, the club has been in freefall over the last few weeks.
Nothing but victory against Preston would really halt the slide, and Villa fans will hope Prutton’s predictions proves very wide of the mark.
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