Villa versus Forest: Premier League Match Preview
Introduction
Welcome everyone to this English top-flight encounter between Villa and Nottingham Forest. Villa will be the favourites to win in this early kick-off as they are flying this season and are currently occupying third place, while Nottingham Forest are 17th and just four points outside of the drop zone.
Both clubs are coming into the game following a loss as Villa were beaten 4-1 by top-of-the-table Arsenal and Forest succumbed 2-0 to Everton.
It will be a tough task for Sean Dyche’s side to obtain all three points with Villa possessing one of the best home records in Europe at the moment and they also achieved a team 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 starting lineups will drop shortly before the start at 12.30pm GMT.
Confirmed Lineups
The team news is in. Unai Emery 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.
Nott’m Forest: Victor, Williams, Murillo, Anderson, Gibbs-White, Dominguez, I Jesus, Hutchinson, Bakwa, Milenkovic, Aina.
Bench: Sels, Morato, Awoniyi, Luiz, Kalimuendo, McAtee, Zinchenko, Savona, Abbott.
Manager Comments
Nottingham Forest manager Sean Dyche has commented on his counterpart today:
"He has done a excellent job as a manager there. Their transfer business has been impressive - invested a lot of money, to be fair, on some very good players and they’ve forged it into a good unit, so definitely a tough game.
We’ve just demonstrated lately, we’ve played against some of the larger clubs, or the ones that are tipped every year, and performed admirably against them - and a couple of teams perhaps not as highly-rated, we haven't performed as strongly against them. That’s probably the challenge of the group - meeting the expectation of each game rather than just the big games."
Transfer Update
Harvey Elliott has will not be staying at Aston Villa, news that was confirmed by the manager Emery in the build-up to this match. The boss said:
"We respect him all we can because he’s a excellent professional, very respectful. 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 persuaded to sign him, committing the money we would need to."
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 on two occasions and Sean Dyche is tasked with keeping the club in the top-flight this season. Since being named manager on 21 October, Dyche has won 10 Premier League points and the side are just above the bottom three with 19 games of the season to go.
