Villa v Forest: Premier League Match Preview
Preamble
Greetings and welcome to this English top-flight fixture between Villa and Nottingham Forest. Villa will be the strong favourites to win in this lunchtime start as they are flying this season and are currently occupying third place, while Forest are seventeenth and just a handful of points outside of the drop zone.
The two teams are coming into the game off of the back of a setback as Villa were beaten 4-1 by league-leading Arsenal and Forest lost 2-0 to Everton.
This shapes up as a challenging task for Forest to come away with all three points with Villa boasting one of the best home records in Europe at the moment and they also achieved 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 starting lineups will be released shortly before kick-off at 12.30pm GMT.
Team News
The lineups have been confirmed. The Villa boss has made four changes to his first eleven who were defeated by 4-1 to Arsenal last time out.
Villa: Martinez, Cash, Konsa, Lindelof, Maatsen, Kamara, Tielemans, McGinn, Buendia, Rogers, Watkins.
Substitutes: Bizot, Digne, Sancho, Garcia, Carroll, Bogarde, Hemmings, Malen, Jimoh-Aloba.
Nottingham Forest have likewise 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.
Bench: Sels, Morato, Awoniyi, Luiz, Kalimuendo, McAtee, Zinchenko, Savona, Abbott.
Pre-Match Quotes
Nottingham Forest manager Sean Dyche has said on his counterpart today:
"He’s [Unai Emery] done a fantastic job as a manager there. Their signings has been good - invested a lot of money, to be fair, on some excellent players and they’ve forged it into a strong side, so certainly a challenging game.
We’ve just demonstrated lately, we’ve played against some of the larger clubs, or the ones that are fancied every year, and held our own against them - and a couple of teams maybe not as fancied, we haven't performed as strongly against them. That’s probably the test of the group - rising to the expectation of each game rather than just the big games."
Transfer Update
Harvey Elliott has no future at Aston Villa, news that was confirmed by the manager Emery in the build-up to this match. The boss said:
"I am respecting him as much as possible because he’s a excellent professional, very dedicated. The problem we have with Harvey is this year he is a loan player 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 need."
Season Snapshot
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 twice and Sean Dyche is charged with keeping the club in the top-flight this season. Since being named manager on 21 October, Dyche has won 10 Premier League points and the side are just outside the bottom three with 19 games of the season to go.
