Stilyan Petrov's Aston Villa travel in search of what is going to be a club record seventh successive away league victory, which will level them at second place with Liverpool. 

Blackburn, on the other hand, having had quite a decent spell in the last 10 games under Sam Allardyce, could be consigned to the foot of the table for the first time this season, depending on other results. Alternatively, they may progress four places with victory, in what will be their first of several back-to-back league games against the top-four clubs, with a visit to Manchester United scheduled for 21 February.

For fans who are not up on English football trivia, it is perhaps worth mentioning that Aston Villa and Blackburn are among the two founder members of the Football League. This will be their 150th clash in a league match.

Moreover, both Villa and Rovers should go out in a positive frame of mind since they were victorious in their midweek FA Cup replays, Villa beating Doncaster 3-1 and Blackburn overwhelming Sunderland 2-1 after extra time.

The Birmingham outfit, however, has won three times as many league matches on the road than Rovers so far this season.

After 210 minutes of FA Cup football, and ahead of the clash with Aston Villa, boss Sam Allardyce was delighted the cup tie between Rovers and Sunderland was finally settled.

"We had enough chances to win two games in 90 minutes and failed to take them again; we made real hard work of it," said Allardyce on Radio Rovers after the game. " We were just working out who we were going to choose to take the penalties," he was quoted saying on the club's official website.

Meanwhile, Brad Friedel has been impressed with Roque Santa Cruz's superb adaption to the game and his rise from bargain buy to star man at Blackburn. Regarding the match with Blackburn, the Villa keeper spoke of the man he will play against on Saturday:

"I was with him every day in training and he's a very hard worker who knows where the goal is. Pound for pound, I reckon he is Blackburn's best signing for quite some time. They got him for around three million pounds and that was a real bargain.  He's a tremendous player and a great guy as well. From day one, when he went into Blackburn's changing room, he was friendly with everybody. He speaks about six different languages and his English is perfect so that was never a problem".