Aston Villa v Nottingham Forest: Top-Flight Preview
Introduction
Welcome everyone to this Premier League encounter between Villa and Forest. Villa will be the strong favourites to win in this early kick-off as they are soaring this season and are currently occupying third place, while Forest are seventeenth and just a handful of points outside of the drop zone.
Each side are entering the game on the back of a setback as Villa were beaten 4-1 by top-of-the-table Arsenal and Forest fell 2-0 to Everton.
This promises to be a tough task for Sean Dyche’s side to come away with all three points with Villa boasting one of the best home records in Europe at the moment and they also recorded a club record of 36 wins across all competitions this season. But perhaps it’s a new year and a new narrative? The answer will be revealed very soon.
The starting lineups will be released shortly before the start at 12.30pm GMT.
Starting Elevens
The team news is in. Unai Emery has made a quartet of alterations to his starting lineup who lost 4-1 to Arsenal in their previous match.
Villa: Martinez, Cash, Konsa, Lindelof, Maatsen, Kamara, Tielemans, McGinn, Buendia, Rogers, Watkins.
Substitutes: Bizot, Digne, Sancho, Garcia, Carroll, Bogarde, Hemmings, Malen, Jimoh-Aloba.
Forest have also made four changes to their matchday squad after a 2-0 loss to Everton.
Nott’m Forest: Victor, Williams, Murillo, Anderson, Gibbs-White, Dominguez, I Jesus, Hutchinson, Bakwa, Milenkovic, Aina.
Bench: Sels, Morato, Awoniyi, Luiz, Kalimuendo, McAtee, Zinchenko, Savona, Abbott.
Dugout Insights
Nottingham Forest manager Sean Dyche has commented on his opponent today:
"He has done a fantastic job as a manager there. Their recruitment has been impressive - invested a lot of money, to be fair, on some excellent players and they’ve shaped it into a cohesive team, so definitely a difficult game.
We’ve just demonstrated lately, we’ve faced some of the bigger teams, or the ones that are fancied every year, and performed admirably against them - and a couple of teams perhaps not as highly-rated, we struggled more against them. That’s likely the challenge of the group - rising to the expectation of each game rather than just the major fixtures."
Squad News
The midfielder has no future at Aston Villa, news that was revealed by the manager Emery in the lead-up to this match. The boss said:
"I am respecting him as much as possible because he’s a top professional, very dedicated. The problem we have with Harvey is this year he is on loan and if he is featuring regularly, we must buy him. We made the decision two months ago we are not persuaded to make the move permanent, spending the money we need."
Season Snapshot
The tables have turned. This time last year Forest were third in the table, where Aston Villa are now. A lot of things have changed, including the manager on two occasions and Sean Dyche is charged with keeping the club in the top-flight this season. Since being appointed on 21 October, Dyche has accumulated 10 Premier League points and the side are just above the relegation zone with 19 games of the season to go.
