Aston Villa versus Forest: Top-Flight Preview
Introduction
Welcome everyone to this Premier League fixture between Aston Villa and Nottingham Forest. The home side are the favourites to win in this lunchtime start as they are flying this season and are currently in third, 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 top-of-the-table Arsenal and Forest lost 2-0 to Everton.
It will be a challenging task for Forest 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 announced shortly before the start at 12.30pm GMT.
Starting Elevens
The lineups have been confirmed. The Villa boss has made four changes to his starting XI 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 starting squad after a 2-0 loss 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
Forest boss Sean Dyche has commented on his opponent today:
"Emery has delivered a fantastic job as a manager there. Their transfer business has been strong - invested a lot of money, to be fair, on some very good players and they’ve moulded it into a strong side, so definitely a difficult game.
We’ve just shown lately, we’ve played against some of the top sides, or the ones that are fancied every year, and held our own against them - and a couple of teams maybe not as fancied, we struggled more against them. That’s likely the challenge of the group - rising to the challenge of each game rather than just the big games."
Transfer Update
The midfielder has no future at Aston Villa, news that was stated by the manager Unai Emery in the lead-up to this match. The boss stated:
"I am respecting him as much as possible because he’s a very good professional, very dedicated. The situation 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
How times change. This time last year Nottingham Forest were third in the table, where Aston Villa are now. A lot of things have altered, including the manager twice and Sean Dyche is tasked with keeping the club in the Premier League this season. Since being appointed 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.
