Villa versus Forest: Top-Flight Match Preview
Preamble
Greetings and welcome to this Premier League fixture between Aston Villa and Nottingham Forest. Aston Villa are the strong favourites to win in this early kick-off as they are soaring this season and are currently in third, while Forest are 17th and just a handful of points outside of the relegation zone.
Each side are entering the game following a defeat as Villa were defeated 4-1 by league-leading Arsenal and Forest succumbed 2-0 to Everton.
This promises to be a tough task for the visitors 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 perhaps it’s new year, new story? The answer will be revealed very soon.
The starting lineups will be released shortly before the start at 12.30pm GMT.
Team News
The starting XIs have been announced. The Villa boss has made four changes to his starting XI 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.
Nottingham Forest have likewise 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.
Manager Comments
Forest boss Sean Dyche has remarked on his counterpart today:
"He’s [Unai Emery] done a great job as a manager there. Their signings has been good - invested a lot of money, to be fair, on some top players and they’ve forged it into a good unit, so certainly 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 done very well 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 expectation of each game rather than just the major fixtures."
Squad News
Harvey Elliott has no future at Aston Villa, an update that was confirmed by the manager Unai Emery in the build-up to this match. The boss commented:
"I am respecting him all we can because he’s a excellent professional, very respectful. 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 would need to."
League Context
The tables have turned. 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 twice 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 outside the bottom three with 19 games of the season remaining.
