Aston Villa v Forest: Top-Flight Preview
Introduction
Greetings and welcome to this Premier League fixture between Villa and Nottingham Forest. Villa will be the expected winners to win in this lunchtime start as they are excelling this season and are currently in third, while Nottingham Forest are seventeenth and just four points outside of the drop zone.
Both clubs are coming into the game on the back of a setback as Villa were defeated 4-1 by league-leading Arsenal and Forest lost 2-0 to Everton.
This shapes up as a tough task for Sean Dyche’s side to come away with all three points with Villa possessing 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 maybe it’s new year, new story? The answer will be revealed very soon.
The confirmed XIs will drop shortly before kick-off at 12.30pm GMT.
Team News
The team news is in. Unai Emery has made four changes to his starting lineup who lost 4-1 to Arsenal last time out.
Villa: Martinez, Cash, Konsa, Lindelof, Maatsen, Kamara, Tielemans, McGinn, Buendia, Rogers, Watkins.
Bench: Bizot, Digne, Sancho, Garcia, Carroll, Bogarde, Hemmings, Malen, Jimoh-Aloba.
Forest have also 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.
Substitutes: Sels, Morato, Awoniyi, Luiz, Kalimuendo, McAtee, Zinchenko, Savona, Abbott.
Pre-Match Quotes
Forest boss Sean Dyche has commented on his counterpart today:
"Emery has delivered a excellent job as a manager there. Their recruitment has been strong - spent a lot of money, to be fair, on some top players and they’ve moulded it into a strong side, so certainly a difficult game.
We’ve just shown lately, we’ve taken on some of the bigger teams, or the ones that are tipped every year, and performed admirably against them - and a couple of teams perhaps not as highly-rated, we haven’t done as well against them. That’s probably the test of the group - rising to the challenge of each game rather than just the major fixtures."
Transfer Update
The midfielder has no future at Aston Villa, an update that was confirmed by the manager Emery in the build-up to this match. The boss said:
"We respect him as much as possible because he’s a top professional, very respectful. The problem we have with Harvey is this year he is on loan 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, committing the money we need."
Form Guide
The tables have turned. This time last year Nottingham Forest were third in the table, where Villa are now. A lot of things have changed, including the manager on two occasions and Sean Dyche is tasked 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 relegation zone with 19 games of the season remaining.
