Aston Villa versus Forest: Top-Flight Preview
Opening Thoughts
Welcome everyone to this Premier League encounter between Villa and Forest. The home side are the favourites to win in this lunchtime start as they are flying this season and are currently sitting third, while Forest are in 17th position and just four points outside of the drop zone.
Both clubs are coming into the game off of the back of a loss as Villa were defeated 4-1 by league-leading Arsenal and Forest lost 2-0 to Everton.
This shapes up as a difficult task for the visitors 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 new year, new story? The answer will be revealed very soon.
The team news will drop shortly before kick-off at 12.30pm GMT.
Team News
The lineups have been confirmed. The Villa boss has made a quartet of alterations to his starting lineup who lost 4-1 to Arsenal last time around.
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 defeat to Everton.
Nott’m Forest: Victor, Williams, Murillo, Anderson, Gibbs-White, Dominguez, I Jesus, Hutchinson, Bakwa, Milenkovic, Aina.
Substitutes: Sels, Morato, Awoniyi, Luiz, Kalimuendo, McAtee, Zinchenko, Savona, Abbott.
Manager Comments
Forest boss Sean Dyche has said on his counterpart today:
"He has done a excellent job as a manager there. Their transfer business has been good - spent a lot of money, to be fair, on some very good players and they’ve forged it into a strong side, so definitely a tough game.
We’ve just demonstrated lately, we’ve taken on some of the top sides, or the ones that are fancied every year, and done very well against them - and a couple of teams perhaps not as fancied, we haven't performed as strongly against them. That’s probably the challenge of the group - meeting the challenge of each game rather than just the major fixtures."
Transfer Update
Harvey Elliott has will not be staying at Aston Villa, an update that was stated by the manager Unai Emery in the lead-up to this match. The boss said:
"I am respecting him all we can because he’s a excellent professional, very respectful. The issue we have with Harvey is this year he is a loan player and if he is playing matches, we are obligated to buy him. We made the decision two months ago we are not persuaded to make the move permanent, spending the money we need."
League Context
What a difference a year makes. This time last year Nottingham Forest were in third place in the table, where 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 won 10 Premier League points and the side are just outside the bottom three with 19 games of the season remaining.
