Villa against Forest: Top-Flight Match Preview
Preamble
Hello and welcome to this English top-flight fixture between Aston Villa and Forest. Villa will be the favourites to win in this lunchtime start as they are soaring this season and are currently in third, while Nottingham Forest are in 17th position and just four points outside of the relegation zone.
Each side are coming into the game on the back of a defeat as Villa were overcome 4-1 by top-of-the-table Arsenal and Forest fell 2-0 to Everton.
It will be a tough task for Sean Dyche’s side to secure all three points with Villa boasting one of the best home records in Europe at the moment and they also achieved a team record of 36 wins across all competitions this season. But maybe it’s a new year and a new narrative? The answer will be revealed very soon.
The confirmed XIs will be announced shortly before kick-off at 12.30pm GMT.
Starting Elevens
The starting XIs have been announced. The Villa boss has made a quartet of alterations to his starting XI who were defeated by 4-1 to Arsenal in their previous match.
Villa: Martinez, Cash, Konsa, Lindelof, Maatsen, Kamara, Tielemans, McGinn, Buendia, Rogers, Watkins.
Substitutes: Bizot, Digne, Sancho, Garcia, Carroll, Bogarde, Hemmings, Malen, Jimoh-Aloba.
Forest have also made four adjustments to their matchday 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’s [Unai Emery] done a excellent job as a manager there. Their transfer business has been good - spent a lot of money, to be fair, on some top players and they’ve shaped it into a cohesive team, so definitely a tough game.
We’ve just demonstrated lately, we’ve played against some of the larger clubs, or the ones that are favoured every year, and held our own against them - and a couple of teams perhaps not as fancied, we struggled more against them. That’s probably the test of the group - rising to the challenge of each game rather than just the big games."
Squad News
The midfielder has will not be staying at Aston Villa, news that was stated by the manager Emery in the build-up to this match. The boss commented:
"We respect 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 must buy him. We made the decision two months ago we are not persuaded to sign him, committing the money we need."
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 shifted, including the manager on two occasions and the current boss 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 above the bottom three with 19 games of the season to go.