Villa against Nottingham Forest: Top-Flight Preview
Introduction
Welcome everyone to this Premier League encounter between Aston Villa and Forest. The home side are the expected winners to win in this lunchtime start as they are flying this season and are currently in third, while Forest are seventeenth and just four points outside of the relegation zone.
Each side are entering the game following a setback as Villa were beaten 4-1 by top-of-the-table Arsenal and Forest lost 2-0 to Everton.
This promises to be a tough task for the visitors to secure all three points with Villa boasting one of the best home forms 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? We will find out very soon.
The confirmed XIs will be released shortly before kick-off at 12.30pm GMT.
Starting Elevens
The team news is in. Unai Emery has made four changes to his starting XI who were defeated by 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 changes to their starting 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.
Manager Comments
Nottingham Forest manager Sean Dyche has commented on his counterpart today:
"He’s [Unai Emery] done a excellent job as a manager there. Their recruitment has been good - invested a lot of money, to be fair, on some excellent players and they’ve forged it into a good unit, so certainly a challenging game.
We’ve just demonstrated lately, we’ve played against some of the bigger teams, or the ones that are fancied 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 likely the challenge of the group - meeting the expectation of each game rather than just the big games."
Player Situation
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 stated:
"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 playing matches, we are obligated to buy him. We made the decision two months ago we are not convinced to make the move permanent, spending the money we would need to."
Season Snapshot
The tables have turned. This time last year Nottingham 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 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 outside the relegation zone with 19 games of the season remaining.
