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Aston Villa's derby clash with Blues sold out

This month’s Second City derby between Villa and Blues has sold out.

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Almost 41,500 fans will be inside Villa Park at lunchtime on Sunday, November 25, after it was confirmed every ticket had been snapped up.

It will be lifelong Villa fan Dean Smith’s first derby in charge of his boyhood club as they look to climb up the table towards the play-offs.

And Smith will hope to have talisman Jack Grealish available, though the midfielder is walking a suspension tightrope at Derby County on Saturday.

The 23-year-old currently sits on four bookings for the season and knows picking up a caution against the Rams at Pride Park would rule him out of Villa’s clash with rivals Blues later this month.

Grealish said: “For me personally, I need to not pick up a yellow card because I’ve only got one left now (before a suspension). That’s my aim.”

The trip to Derby starts a testing run of fixtures for Villa which also includes a derby date with Albion and a rematch with last season’s play-off opponents Middlesbrough.

“They are all tough games. You don’t get any easy ones in this league,” said Grealish. “We are just going to take each game as it comes.”

Villa are also assessing the fitness of midfielder Birkir Bjarnason ahead of the weekend.

The Iceland international missed last Friday’s 2-0 win over Bolton due to a groin injury suffered in the previous week’s defeat at QPR.

Bjarnason, regularly moved in and out of the team by former boss Steve Bruce, had started the first three matches of new head coach Smith’s Villa Park reign.