Aston Villa are back in action this afternoon with a home clash against Southampton in the Premier League after securing a much-needed victory last weekend against Brighton & Hove Albion.

The Midlands club head into the game with 30 points on the board and 13th in the league table, whereas Ralph Hasenhuttl's side are currently four places and five points ahead of the Villans.

On the chalkboard

In terms of which players Villa manager Steven Gerrard could pick in his starting XI to take on the Saints, one man who started in the win at Brighton but we feel should be dropped from the team on this occasion is Danny Ings.

Having arrived at Villa Park last summer from this weekend's opponents in a deal worth a reported £25m, the striker has found scoring on a regular basis rather difficult, with just four goals in 19 league appearances for his current club.

In addition to his lack of regular goals, the 29-year-old's recent performances have not been much to shout about either.

Firstly, with 90 minutes under his belt in the recent 1-0 defeat against Watford, the striker failed to have a shot on target throughout the entire match, which ultimately earned him an underwhelming overall match rating of 6.3/10 from SofaScore.

While the overall result against Brighton was a positive one for the club, things got worse for Ings from an individual point of view, with just nine passes made and no shots at goal at all, along with losing six of his nine duels before being replaced in the 79th minute.

Taking this into account, it doesn't seem like the summer recruit - who has been claimed to be "frustrated" by the lack of assistance from team-mates at times this season by former Villa defender Alan Hutton - is in the right sort of form to take on his former club this weekend and help the Villans potentially pick up another league win.

With that in mind, it could be Gerrard's best option to take him out of the team on this occasion and see how they get on without him from the start, instead of potentially holding them back with his lack of output in front of goal.

In other news: Ashley Preece delivers huge Villa injury boost which will leave Gerrard ecstatic