Aston Villa against Forest: Top-Flight Preview
Introduction
Welcome everyone to this Premier League fixture between Aston Villa and Forest. Aston Villa are the favourites to win in this early kick-off as they are soaring this season and are currently occupying third place, while Forest are 17th and just four points outside of the drop zone.
Each side are coming into the game off of the back of a setback as Villa were overcome 4-1 by league-leading Arsenal and Forest succumbed 2-0 to Everton.
This promises to be a tough task for Forest 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 a new year and a new narrative? We will find out very soon.
The starting lineups will be released shortly before the start at 12.30pm GMT.
Team News
The lineups have been confirmed. The Villa boss has made a quartet of alterations to his starting lineup who lost 4-1 to Arsenal last time around.
Aston 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.
Bench: Sels, Morato, Awoniyi, Luiz, Kalimuendo, McAtee, Zinchenko, Savona, Abbott.
Pre-Match Quotes
Nottingham Forest manager Sean Dyche has said on his counterpart today:
"Emery has delivered a great job as a manager there. Their recruitment has been good - invested a lot of money, to be fair, on some very good players and they’ve forged it into a strong side, so definitely a tough game.
We’ve just demonstrated lately, we’ve faced some of the larger clubs, or the ones that are favoured every year, and performed admirably against them - and a couple of teams perhaps not as fancied, 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 big games."
Player Situation
Harvey Elliott has will not be staying at Aston Villa, an update that was confirmed by the manager Unai 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 respectful. The issue we have with Harvey is this year he is on loan and if he is playing matches, we must buy him. We decided two months ago we are not convinced to make the move permanent, committing the money we need."
Form Guide
The tables have turned. This time last year Nottingham Forest were in third place in the table, where Aston Villa are now. A lot of things have altered, 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 accumulated 10 Premier League points and the side are just outside the bottom three with 19 games of the season remaining.
