Aston Villa v Nottingham Forest: Top-Flight Preview
Opening Thoughts
Greetings and welcome to this English top-flight encounter between Aston Villa and Nottingham Forest. Aston Villa are the expected winners to win in this lunchtime start as they are flying this season and are currently occupying third place, while Forest are seventeenth and just four points outside of the relegation zone.
The two teams are coming into the game following a setback as Villa were beaten 4-1 by top-of-the-table Arsenal and Forest succumbed 2-0 to Everton.
This promises to be a tough task for the visitors to secure all three points with Villa possessing one of the best home forms in Europe at the moment and they also set a club record of 36 wins across all competitions this season. But maybe it’s a new year and a new narrative? The answer will be revealed very soon.
The team news will be announced 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 out.
Aston 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 likewise made four adjustments to their matchday squad after a 2-0 loss to Everton.
Nottingham Forest: Victor, Williams, Murillo, Anderson, Gibbs-White, Dominguez, I Jesus, Hutchinson, Bakwa, Milenkovic, Aina.
Bench: Sels, Morato, Awoniyi, Luiz, Kalimuendo, McAtee, Zinchenko, Savona, Abbott.
Pre-Match Quotes
Nottingham Forest manager Sean Dyche has commented on his counterpart today:
"He’s [Unai Emery] done a great job as a manager there. Their signings has been strong - invested a lot of money, to be fair, on some excellent players and they’ve shaped it into a cohesive team, so definitely a challenging game.
We’ve just demonstrated lately, we’ve played against some of the bigger teams, or the ones that are favoured every year, and held our own against them - and a couple of teams perhaps not as fancied, we haven’t done as well against them. That’s probably the challenge of the group - meeting the challenge of each game rather than just the major fixtures."
Transfer Update
Harvey Elliott has will not be staying at Aston Villa, an update that was revealed by the manager Emery in the build-up to this match. The boss said:
"We respect him all we can because he’s a very good professional, very dedicated. The situation we have with Harvey is this year he is a loan player and if he is featuring regularly, we are obligated to buy him. We made the decision two months ago we are not convinced to make the move permanent, committing the money we need."
Form Guide
The tables have turned. This time last year Forest were in third place 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 Premier League this season. Since being named manager on 21 October, Dyche has won 10 Premier League points and the side are just outside the relegation zone with 19 games of the season remaining.
