Residents and business owners living around Aston Villa’s stadium have expressed anxieties before the club’s Europa League match against Maccabi Tel Aviv on Thursday.

More than 700 police officers will be deployed, along with police horses, police dogs and a drone unit, with protests expected by different groups, West Midlands police said.

This comes weeks after Birmingham’s Safety Advisory Group announced its decision to ban Maccabi fans from attending on public safety grounds after police classified the match as “high risk”, sparking controversy.

The decision was criticised by some as a surrender to antisemitism, with calls for the ban to be overturned. Keir Starmer called it the “wrong” decision and the opposition leader, Kemi Badenoch, said it was a “national disgrace”.

On the streets of Aston, and close to the Villa stadium, lamp-posts are covered with Palestinian flags and some local businesses display posters of a rally scheduled on Thursday in support of Palestine and calling for Israel to be suspended from Uefa and Fifa.

Abul Lase, who owns an accountancy firm in Aston, said someone had approached him to ask whether they could display the poster in his window. He agreed, although he has no plans to attend...