Bradley Johnson and David Nugent return to the Derby County starting line-up for this afternoon’s Sky Bet Championship top-six meeting with Aston Villa this afternoon, kick-off: 3pm.


The former makes his first start since the 1-1 draw with Fulham a month ago, replacing the injured Tom Lawrence who misses out today after damaging ligaments in his foot a week ago against Barnsley.

Nugent, 32, replaces Chris Martin to lead the attack against the Villans at Pride Park Stadium.

Martin drops to the substitutes bench, whilst Alex Pearce is also named amongst the substitutes once again.

Three Derby players – Scott Carson, Curtis Davies and Andreas Weimann – all start against their former club this afternoon.

Notably, Tom Huddlestone will make his 500th career appearance in today’s fixture – his 116th in a Rams shirt!

Derby County: Carson, Baird, Keogh (C), Davies, Forsyth; Huddlestone, Ledley; Weimann, Vydra, Johnson; Nugent

Substitutes: Mitchell, Russell, Martin, Wisdom, Pearce, Winnall, Thorne

Aston Villa: Johnstone, Taylor, Chester (C), Whelan, Snodgrass, Grealish, Hourihane, Jedinak, Onomah, Elmohamady, Adomah

Substitutes: Steer, De Laet, Hogan, Agbonlahor, Bjarnason, Hutton, Elphick

Not in attendance at Pride Park this afternoon? Full details of how you can follow all of the action with RamsTV can be found here.