Aston Villa against Nottingham Forest: Top-Flight Preview
Introduction
Greetings and welcome to this Premier League encounter between Villa and Forest. Villa will be the expected winners to win in this early kick-off as they are flying this season and are currently occupying third place, while Nottingham Forest are in 17th position and just four points outside of the drop zone.
The two teams are entering the game following a loss as Villa were defeated 4-1 by league-leading Arsenal and Forest succumbed 2-0 to Everton.
This shapes up as a challenging task for the visitors to obtain all three points with Villa possessing one of the best home records in Europe at the moment and they also recorded a team record of 36 wins across all competitions this season. But perhaps it’s a new year and a new narrative? The answer will be revealed very soon.
The starting lineups will drop shortly before the start at 12.30pm GMT.
Team News
The lineups have been confirmed. Unai Emery has made a quartet of alterations to his first eleven who lost 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.
Forest have also made four changes 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.
Substitutes: Sels, Morato, Awoniyi, Luiz, Kalimuendo, McAtee, Zinchenko, Savona, Abbott.
Pre-Match Quotes
Forest boss Sean Dyche has commented on his opponent today:
"He has done a excellent job as a manager there. Their recruitment has been impressive - spent a lot of money, to be fair, on some top players and they’ve moulded it into a strong side, so definitely a challenging game.
We’ve just shown lately, we’ve taken on some of the bigger teams, or the ones that are tipped every year, and held our own against them - and a couple of teams perhaps not as highly-rated, we haven't performed as strongly against them. That’s likely the challenge of the group - rising to the challenge of each game rather than just the big games."
Squad News
Harvey Elliott has will not be staying at Aston Villa, news that was stated by the manager Unai Emery in the lead-up to this match. The boss said:
"We respect him all we can because he’s a top professional, very respectful. The situation we have with Harvey is this year he is a loan player and if he is featuring regularly, we must buy him. We decided two months ago we are not persuaded to make the move permanent, committing the money we need."
Form Guide
How times change. This time last year Nottingham Forest were in third place in the table, where Aston Villa are now. A lot of things have shifted, including the manager on two occasions and Sean Dyche is tasked with keeping the club in the Premier League this season. Since being appointed 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 to go.
