How will Aston Villa cope against Nottingham Forest?

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Aston Villa host Nottingham Forest on Wednesday night in the Championship and would surely love to extend a run of three consecutive league victories.

Dean Smith’s era is beginning to really take shape now in the Midlands and a win over rivals Birmingham at the weekend was a massive boost.

But they now come up against seventh-placed Forest, who are three points ahead of them in the league table and extremely difficult to beat.

Villa will be preparing to come up against a former player of theirs in the shape of Lewis Grabban, who had a successful loan spell with them last season.

The centre-forward completed a £6million (BBC) move to Forest in the summer and the in-form ace has already scored 11 goals across all competitions this season.

Grabban, 30, is a striker that is prolific at Championship level and often needs just one chance in the penalty area.

Villa will need to be on their A-game defensively to handle him, with the centre-back pairing of James Chester and Axel Tuanzebe likely to be marshalling him.

They are beginning to build a strong partnership and have two clean sheets in the last three games, but they won’t come up against many Championship attackers that are more intelligent than Grabban in the box.

Grabban also has a record of punishing Villa in the past when lining up against them, as he’s scored two goals and supplied two assists in his last two games against them.