Villa versus Nottingham Forest: Top-Flight Preview
Introduction
Welcome everyone to this English top-flight encounter between Villa and Forest. Villa will be the favourites to win in this lunchtime start as they are soaring this season and are currently occupying third place, while Nottingham Forest are in 17th position and just a handful of points outside of the relegation zone.
Both clubs are entering the game off of the back of a loss as Villa were overcome 4-1 by league-leading Arsenal and Forest lost 2-0 to Everton.
It will be a challenging task for Forest to obtain all three points with Villa boasting one of the best home forms 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 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 four changes to his starting lineup who were defeated by 4-1 to Arsenal last time around.
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 defeat 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 remarked on his opponent today:
"He’s [Unai Emery] done a great job as a manager there. Their signings has been strong - spent a lot of money, to be fair, on some very good players and they’ve forged it into a cohesive team, so definitely a challenging game.
We’ve just shown lately, we’ve played against some of the larger clubs, or the ones that are tipped every year, and held our own against them - and a couple of teams maybe not as highly-rated, we haven't performed as strongly against them. That’s probably the challenge of the group - rising to the challenge of each game rather than just the major fixtures."
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 commented:
"I am respecting 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 featuring regularly, we must buy him. We decided two months ago we are not persuaded to make the move permanent, committing 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 Aston Villa are now. A lot of things have shifted, including the manager on two occasions and the current boss is charged with keeping the club in the Premier League this season. Since being named manager 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 to go.
