Aston Villa v Nottingham Forest: Top-Flight Match Preview
Opening Thoughts
Greetings and welcome to this Premier League fixture between Villa and Forest. Villa will be the strong favourites to win in this lunchtime start as they are soaring this season and are currently sitting third, while Nottingham Forest are seventeenth and just four points outside of the drop zone.
The two teams are entering the game on the back of a loss as Villa were overcome 4-1 by league-leading Arsenal and Forest succumbed 2-0 to Everton.
This shapes up as a difficult task for Sean Dyche’s side to come away with all three points with Villa possessing one of the best home forms in Europe at the moment and they also recorded a team record of 36 wins across all competitions this season. But perhaps it’s new year, new story? All will become clear very soon.
The starting lineups will be announced shortly before kick-off at 12.30pm GMT.
Team News
The lineups have been confirmed. Unai Emery has made four changes to his first eleven who were defeated by 4-1 to Arsenal in their previous match.
Aston Villa: Martinez, Cash, Konsa, Lindelof, Maatsen, Kamara, Tielemans, McGinn, Buendia, Rogers, Watkins.
Substitutes: Bizot, Digne, Sancho, Garcia, Carroll, Bogarde, Hemmings, Malen, Jimoh-Aloba.
Nottingham Forest have likewise made four adjustments to their starting squad after a 2-0 loss to Everton.
Nottingham Forest: Victor, Williams, Murillo, Anderson, Gibbs-White, Dominguez, I Jesus, Hutchinson, Bakwa, Milenkovic, Aina.
Substitutes: 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 transfer business has been good - invested a lot of money, to be fair, on some excellent players and they’ve moulded it into a cohesive team, so definitely a difficult game.
We’ve just demonstrated lately, we’ve taken on some of the bigger teams, or the ones that are tipped every year, and held our own against them - and a couple of teams maybe not as fancied, we haven't performed as strongly against them. That’s likely the challenge of the group - rising to the expectation of each game rather than just the big games."
Transfer Update
Harvey Elliott has will not be staying at Aston Villa, news that was stated by the manager Unai 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 a loan player and if he is featuring regularly, we are obligated to buy him. We decided two months ago we are not persuaded to make the move permanent, committing the money we need."
Season Snapshot
What a difference a year makes. 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 Premier League this season. Since being named manager on 21 October, Dyche has won 10 Premier League points and the side are just outside the bottom three with 19 games of the season to go.