Aston Villa against Nottingham Forest: Premier League Match Preview
Introduction
Greetings and welcome to this English top-flight encounter between Aston Villa and Forest. Aston Villa are the strong favourites to win in this lunchtime start as they are flying this season and are currently sitting third, while Forest are 17th and just four points outside of the drop zone.
Both clubs are entering the game on the back of a loss as Villa were overcome 4-1 by league-leading Arsenal and Forest fell 2-0 to Everton.
It will be a difficult task for Sean Dyche’s side to secure all three points with Villa boasting 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? All will become clear very soon.
The team news will drop shortly before kick-off at 12.30pm GMT.
Starting Elevens
The team news is in. Unai Emery has made a quartet of alterations to his first eleven who were defeated by 4-1 to Arsenal in their previous match.
Aston Villa: Martinez, Cash, Konsa, Lindelof, Maatsen, Kamara, Tielemans, McGinn, Buendia, Rogers, Watkins.
Bench: Bizot, Digne, Sancho, Garcia, Carroll, Bogarde, Hemmings, Malen, Jimoh-Aloba.
Nottingham Forest have also made four adjustments 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.
Pre-Match Quotes
Forest boss Sean Dyche has said on his counterpart today:
"Emery has delivered a fantastic job as a manager there. Their signings has been impressive - spent a lot of money, to be fair, on some top players and they’ve moulded it into a good unit, so certainly a difficult game.
We’ve just shown lately, we’ve faced some of the larger clubs, or the ones that are tipped every year, and done very well against them - and a couple of teams maybe not as fancied, we haven’t done as well against them. That’s probably the challenge of the group - meeting the expectation of each game rather than just the major fixtures."
Player Situation
The midfielder has will not be staying at Aston Villa, an update that was stated 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 issue 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."
Form Guide
What a difference a year makes. This time last year Nottingham Forest were third in the table, where Villa are now. A lot of things have shifted, including the manager on two occasions 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 above the bottom three with 19 games of the season to go.
