Villa v Nottingham Forest: Top-Flight Build-Up
Preamble
Hello and welcome to this Premier League clash between Aston Villa and Forest. Aston Villa are the strong favourites to win in this early kick-off as they are flying this season and are currently in third, while Forest are in 17th position and just four points outside of the relegation zone.
The two teams are entering the game off of the back of a setback as Villa were defeated 4-1 by league-leading Arsenal and Forest fell 2-0 to Everton.
It will be a difficult task for the visitors to secure all three points with Villa possessing one of the best home forms in Europe at the moment and they also achieved a club record of 36 wins across all competitions this season. But maybe it’s a new year and a new narrative? We will find out very soon.
The team news will be announced shortly before the start at 12.30pm GMT.
Confirmed Lineups
The team news is in. The Villa boss has made four changes to his starting XI who lost 4-1 to Arsenal last time out.
Aston Villa: Martinez, Cash, Konsa, Lindelof, Maatsen, Kamara, Tielemans, McGinn, Buendia, Rogers, Watkins.
Bench: Bizot, Digne, Sancho, Garcia, Carroll, Bogarde, Hemmings, Malen, Jimoh-Aloba.
Nottingham Forest have likewise made four adjustments to their matchday squad after a 2-0 defeat to Everton.
Nottingham Forest: Victor, Williams, Murillo, Anderson, Gibbs-White, Dominguez, I Jesus, Hutchinson, Bakwa, Milenkovic, Aina.
Bench: Sels, Morato, Awoniyi, Luiz, Kalimuendo, McAtee, Zinchenko, Savona, Abbott.
Pre-Match Quotes
Forest boss Sean Dyche has commented on his counterpart today:
"He’s [Unai Emery] done a great job as a manager there. Their transfer business has been good - invested a lot of money, to be fair, on some very good players and they’ve moulded it into a cohesive team, so definitely a difficult game.
We’ve just shown lately, we’ve played against some of the bigger teams, or the ones that are fancied every year, and performed admirably against them - and a couple of teams maybe not as fancied, we haven't performed as strongly against them. That’s probably the challenge of the group - rising to the expectation of each game rather than just the big games."
Squad News
The midfielder has will not be staying at Aston Villa, an update that was stated by the manager Unai Emery in the build-up to this match. The boss stated:
"I am respecting him as much as possible because he’s a very good professional, very dedicated. The problem 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 decided two months ago we are not convinced to make the move permanent, committing the money we would need to."
Season Snapshot
How times change. This time last year Nottingham Forest were in third place in the table, where Villa are now. A lot of things have altered, 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 accumulated 10 Premier League points and the side are just above the bottom three with 19 games of the season to go.
