Aston Villa versus Forest: Top-Flight Match Preview
Opening Thoughts
Greetings and welcome to this Premier League fixture between Villa and Forest. Aston Villa are the strong favourites to win in this early kick-off as they are flying this season and are currently sitting third, while Nottingham Forest are in 17th position and just a handful of points outside of the relegation zone.
The two teams are coming into the game following a defeat as Villa were overcome 4-1 by top-of-the-table Arsenal and Forest succumbed 2-0 to Everton.
This promises to 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 set a club record of 36 wins across all competitions this season. But maybe it’s new year, new story? All will become clear very soon.
The team news will be released shortly before the start at 12.30pm GMT.
Starting Elevens
The lineups have been confirmed. The Villa boss has made a quartet of alterations to his starting lineup who lost 4-1 to Arsenal last time out.
Villa: Martinez, Cash, Konsa, Lindelof, Maatsen, Kamara, Tielemans, McGinn, Buendia, Rogers, Watkins.
Bench: 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.
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.
Pre-Match Quotes
Nottingham Forest manager Sean Dyche has commented on his opponent today:
"Emery has delivered a excellent job as a manager there. Their recruitment has been impressive - spent a lot of money, to be fair, on some excellent players and they’ve shaped it into a cohesive team, so certainly a challenging game.
We’ve just demonstrated lately, we’ve faced some of the bigger teams, or the ones that are fancied 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 challenge of each game rather than just the big games."
Squad News
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 commented:
"I am respecting him all we can because he’s a very good professional, very respectful. The problem 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 convinced to make the move permanent, spending the money we would need to."
League Context
The tables have turned. This time last year Nottingham Forest were in third place in the table, where Villa are now. A lot of things have changed, including the manager twice and the current boss is charged 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 to go.
