Aston Villa versus Forest: Top-Flight Match Preview
Opening Thoughts
Greetings and welcome to this Premier League clash between Aston Villa and Nottingham Forest. Aston Villa are the favourites to win in this early kick-off as they are excelling this season and are currently occupying third place, while Nottingham Forest are in 17th position and just a handful of points outside of the drop zone.
The two teams 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 succumbed 2-0 to Everton.
This shapes up as a difficult task for Sean Dyche’s side to secure 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 a new year and a new narrative? We will find out very soon.
The confirmed XIs will be released shortly before the start at 12.30pm GMT.
Starting Elevens
The lineups have been confirmed. The Villa boss has made four changes to his first eleven who lost 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 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.
Bench: Sels, Morato, Awoniyi, Luiz, Kalimuendo, McAtee, Zinchenko, Savona, Abbott.
Dugout Insights
Nottingham Forest manager Sean Dyche has commented on his opponent today:
"Emery has delivered a great job as a manager there. Their transfer business 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 definitely a difficult game.
We’ve just shown lately, we’ve faced some of the top sides, or the ones that are favoured every year, and performed admirably against them - and a couple of teams maybe 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 stated 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 very good professional, very respectful. The situation 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, spending the money we would need to."
Season Snapshot
What a difference a year makes. This time last year 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 top-flight 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.