Aston Villa v Nottingham Forest: Top-Flight Preview
Introduction
Hello and welcome to this Premier League clash between Villa and Forest. Villa will be the favourites to win in this early kick-off as they are soaring this season and are currently in third, while Forest are seventeenth and just a handful of points outside of the drop zone.
The two teams are entering the game off of the back of a setback as Villa were defeated 4-1 by top-of-the-table Arsenal and Forest fell 2-0 to Everton.
It will be a tough task for Forest to come away with all three points with Villa possessing one of the best home forms in Europe at the moment and they also recorded a team record of 36 wins across all competitions this season. But maybe it’s a new year and a new narrative? All will become clear very soon.
The starting lineups will be released shortly before kick-off at 12.30pm GMT.
Confirmed Lineups
The starting XIs have been announced. Unai Emery has made four changes to his starting lineup who were defeated by 4-1 to Arsenal in their previous match.
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 loss to Everton.
Nott’m Forest: Victor, Williams, Murillo, Anderson, Gibbs-White, Dominguez, I Jesus, Hutchinson, Bakwa, Milenkovic, Aina.
Substitutes: Sels, Morato, Awoniyi, Luiz, Kalimuendo, McAtee, Zinchenko, Savona, Abbott.
Dugout Insights
Nottingham Forest manager Sean Dyche has said on his counterpart today:
"Emery has delivered a great job as a manager there. Their signings has been impressive - invested a lot of money, to be fair, on some excellent players and they’ve forged it into a good unit, so certainly a difficult game.
We’ve just demonstrated lately, we’ve faced some of the bigger teams, or the ones that are fancied 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 probably the test of the group - rising to the challenge of each game rather than just the major fixtures."
Player Situation
Harvey Elliott has no future at Aston Villa, news that was confirmed by the manager Emery in the lead-up to this match. The boss stated:
"We respect him as much as possible because he’s a top professional, very dedicated. The issue we have with Harvey is this year he is on loan and if he is playing matches, we must 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."
League Context
What a difference a year makes. This time last year Forest were in third place in the table, where Aston Villa are now. A lot of things have changed, including the manager twice and the current boss 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 relegation zone with 19 games of the season remaining.
