Analysis: Injury-hit Aston Villa taking adversity in their stride as they continue to climb the Championship

An injury jinx, which had already accounted for several star players, on Saturday saw Mile Jedinak forced off with a shoulder problem just 26 minutes into his second league start of the campaign.

It meant that, for the third time in eight days, boss Steve Bruce relied on the same 11 players to engineer victory.

For the third time in eight days, they succeeded, thanks in no small part to a man in the best goal-scoring form his career.

Villa Park might have last week played host to a prince, yet Albert Adomah’s coronation as the club’s new goal king is surely complete after his latest double downed Ipswich. The winger, as he has done so often recently, sparked what had been until then a rather tepid performance from the hosts when he flicked the opener over visiting keeper Bartosz Bialkowski on 36 minutes.

His second, at the midway point of the second half, was dispatched will all the confidence of a player who has flourished in a week that has yielded nine points and now has Villa firmly believing automatic promotion is within their capabilities.

It is difficult to know what there is left to say about Adomah. The 29-year-old still needs three more to beat his best ever haul of 12 in the Championship, achieved while with Middlesbrough during the 2013/14 campaign.

On this form, however, the bar should perhaps be set higher. Indeed, some are beginning to wonder whether Adomah might become the first Villa player to net 20 in a league campaign since Peter Withe in the 1980/81 title-winning season.

His 10 league goals to this point have been achieved during a 12-game run which has seen Villa claim 28 points from a possible 36 and climb to within striking distance of the division’s top two.

It is a run which has, for the most part, been greeted by little fanfare outside of Birmingham. Villa have certainly not received the kind of plaudits heaped on their neighbours up the road at Wolves.

Only the men from Molineux, however, can claim to be in better form at this moment. Bruce’s men might lack the style and panache of their rivals, but there is much to admire in their organisation, resilience and the relentless manner in which they have picked up result after result.

Winning positions are never squandered. Not since the opening-day draw with Hull after Villa failed to pick up three points after opening the scoring. Ipswich began the far brighter team on Saturday but rarely looked like getting back into the contest once Adomah had nudged the hosts ahead.

With Villa, of course, there will always be caveats. One wonders whether the injury list, which almost exclusively contains key players, might eventually begin to stifle momentum? For how much longer can youngsters Keinan Davis and Josh Onomah continue to carry the load up front?

Friday night at Leeds will be billed as a litmus test by many. Yet it is Villa, with four wins from their last six away, who should surely be billed as favourites.

Theirs is a machine which is far from perfect but rumbles on, even while apparently vital components have faltered. At this rate, they may well take some stopping.

Villa (4-4-1-1): Johnstone 6, Hutton 7, Chester (c) 6, Jedinak 5 (Samba 26 6), Taylor 6 (Elmohamdy 81), Snodgrass 8, Whelan 7, Hourihane 6, Adomah 8, Onomah 6, Davis 6 (Grealish 86). Subs not used: De Laet, Lansbury, O’Hare, Steer (gk).