Villa versus Forest: Top-Flight Preview
Preamble
Welcome everyone to this Premier League clash between Villa and Nottingham Forest. Villa will be the strong favourites to win in this lunchtime start as they are flying this season and are currently sitting third, while Nottingham Forest are seventeenth and just a handful of points outside of the relegation zone.
Each side are coming into the game on the back of a setback as Villa were beaten 4-1 by top-of-the-table Arsenal and Forest lost 2-0 to Everton.
It will be a challenging task for Forest to obtain 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 maybe it’s new year, new story? All will become clear very soon.
The starting lineups will be released shortly before the start at 12.30pm GMT.
Team News
The team news is in. Unai Emery has made four changes to his first eleven who lost 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 also made four changes 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.
Dugout Insights
Nottingham Forest manager Sean Dyche has remarked on his opponent today:
"He has done a excellent job as a manager there. Their recruitment has been strong - invested a lot of money, to be fair, on some top players and they’ve forged it into a strong side, so certainly a challenging game.
We’ve just shown lately, we’ve taken on some of the larger clubs, or the ones that are fancied every year, and done very well against them - and a couple of teams maybe not as highly-rated, we struggled more against them. That’s probably the challenge of the group - rising to the expectation of each game rather than just the major fixtures."
Transfer Update
Harvey Elliott has no future at Aston Villa, an update that was revealed by the manager Emery in the lead-up to this match. The boss commented:
"We respect him as much as possible because he’s a excellent professional, very dedicated. The problem we have with Harvey is this year he is on loan 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."
League Context
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 shifted, including the manager on two occasions and the current boss is tasked with keeping the club in the top-flight this season. Since being named manager on 21 October, Dyche has secured 10 Premier League points and the side are just outside the relegation zone with 19 games of the season remaining.
