Aston Villa welcome bitter rivals Birmingham City to Villa Park for a crucial second-city derby on Sunday in the Championship, and fans have taken to Twitter to express their anger after Birkir Bjarnason was dropped to the bench.
Villa come into the clash as the form team in the second-tier, having won each of their past six matches to shoot up to third in the table.
Their last run-out was against strugglers Burton Albion, with Steve Bruce’s side emerging 3-2 winners to continue their push for automatic promotion.
Scott Hogan scored his fifth goal in five games against Burton, with the striker in his best form ever for Villa at such a crucial point in the season.
A win over the Blues on Sunday would see Villa rise to second in the table, as they currently sit two points behind Derby County with a game in hand, with the Rams only managing a draw on Saturday against Norwich.
Opponents Birmingham are seeking a win for very different reasons, with Steve Cotterill’s men looking to pull away from relegation danger, currently sitting in 20th on 30 points, just two away from the drop zone.
Attention before the match turned to the axing of 29-year-old Bjarnason, who has been in great form recently after a tough start to his Villa career, with the Iceland international replaced by Mile Jedinak.
This is Futbol have rounded up some of the best tweets:
Why drop Bjarnason? No sense in that to me whatsoever…
— Jon Startin (@Jon_Startin) February 11, 2018
Bjarnsson dropped?
— Aaron Tiwari (@tiwariiiiiii) February 11, 2018
https://twitter.com/_JoeAVFC/status/962642523507318784
https://twitter.com/mathew_day/status/962643219174576128
https://twitter.com/KingAdomah/status/962642471380451329
https://twitter.com/toby_west11/status/962642617552039937
Jedinak in makes sense but very harsh on Bjarnason
— Nick (@NickRedV) February 11, 2018
Too defensive should have birkir instead of jedinak
— Ted (@ted1874) February 11, 2018
Bjarnasson got a knock ?? Otherwise bigtime unfair as he’s got better passing and legs now than Jedi who I still think is class just BB looks a younger version
— Gaz Saunders (@saunders_gaz) February 11, 2018
BB has been outstanding, bad call to drop him. Can only be for ndoye but didn't think he was playing . There other midfielders are far more mobile than mile so will lose out there.
— Darren Hughes (@yosser1977) February 11, 2018
Bring back Thor
— Luke Archer (@LukeArcher6) February 11, 2018
Barney shouldn't and didn't deserve to be dropped
— connor (@CV1874) February 11, 2018