After drawing at home to Preston, do Aston Villa need to win next three matches before Wolves clash to maintain push for automatic promotion?
After winning seven successive Championship matches to move up into the automatic promotion places behind Wolverhampton Wanderers, Aston Villa have since suffered a minor blip.
Firstly they lost 2-0 to Fulham at the weekend – the only other team in the division who could match their impressive form up until that point – and they drew at home to Preston North End on Tuesday (February 20) thanks to an equalising penalty from Lewis Grabban.
One point from two games is hardly something to panic about, but with things so tight behind Wolves at the top of the division if the Villans want to return to the Premier League this season without going through the playoffs they probably do need to rediscover their winning form.
Even that slight dip has allowed Cardiff City to move above them into second place and the Bluebirds could extend the gap to four points if they win away at Ipswich Town tonight (February 21).
For Villa they now have a run of three fixtures against teams in the bottom half of the table, travelling to 16th-placed Sheffield Wednesday this weekend, before hosting 15th-placed QPR and then a trip to bottom side Sunderland.
That trio of games comes before the unenviable task of hosting runaway leaders Wolves in a Midlands derby on March 10 and with three points in that clash at Villa Park by no means guaranteed for Steve Bruce’s men, taking nine in the run up to it could well be crucial.
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