Ryan Woods admits he will have extra motivation for wanting to help Brentford beat Birmingham City this afternoon.
Although he grew up, like his dad, a Walsall fan in Norton Canes, in the northern suburbs of Birmingham, Woods' extended family are mainly Aston Villa fans.
And a whole host of them will be at Griffin Park today to cheer the midfielder on against Villa's deadly rivals.
He said: “Most of my family are Villa fans, and a lot of them have been saying make sure you get a result against them on Saturday. I'll be looking to do that for them as much as anyone else.
“It's a team I like to get one over on. I've got a few of my family and friends coming down, so hopefully can get three points for them as well as for Brentford.
“But Birmingham are a good side who are very hard to beat. We will be looking at their weaknesses and how we can break them down, and hopefully we will be on our A game and take it to them.”
Woods spent some time with both Birmingham and Villa as a youngster, and after putting in a superb performance in Brentford's
draw at Villa Parkin September, Villa fans labelled him as the one that got away. What price similar praise from Blues fans at 5pm today?
Woods said: “It weren't quite the same at Blues, It was a long time ago now, when I was nine or 10, and I didn't really enjoy it.
“I's nice when fans talk about you the way they have been, but you have to take it in your stride, and for me it's about getting better.”
But Woods won't be the only Bee wanting to put things right today. Instead of kicking on from their impressive derby win at QPR last month, they have instead put in below-par performances in defeats to Fulham and Blackburn .
He added: “Performance-wise, we've not been as good as we were against QPR, especially the first half against Fulham and Blackburn. We turned it around against Blackburn but just couldn't get another goal. Once we sort put the first half performances right we will be okay.
“It was difficult on Saturday because one was a penalty we couldn't do much about, and Harlee was unfortunate with the own goal. Sometimes things like that go against you, but we're giving teams too many chances at the moment through our own fault and not making them work hard enough.
“At the start of the season we were making it very difficult for teams to score against us. Getting back to that is something we've been working on, and hopefully we can take that into this game.”
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