Villa v Forest: Top-Flight Preview
Opening Thoughts
Greetings and welcome to this Premier League fixture between Villa and Forest. Villa will be the strong favourites to win in this lunchtime start as they are excelling this season and are currently sitting third, while Nottingham Forest are 17th and just four points outside of the relegation zone.
Both clubs are coming into the game on the back of a loss as Villa were beaten 4-1 by league-leading Arsenal and Forest fell 2-0 to Everton.
This promises to be a tough task for Forest to come away with all three points with Villa possessing one of the best home records in Europe at the moment and they also set a team record of 36 wins across all competitions this season. But perhaps it’s new year, new story? We will find out very soon.
The starting lineups will be announced shortly before kick-off at 12.30pm GMT.
Confirmed Lineups
The starting XIs have been announced. The Villa boss has made a quartet of alterations to his starting lineup who were defeated by 4-1 to Arsenal in their previous match.
Aston 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 likewise made four changes 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.
Dugout Insights
Nottingham Forest manager Sean Dyche has said on his opponent today:
"He has done a excellent job as a manager there. Their signings has been good - spent a lot of money, to be fair, on some excellent players and they’ve forged it into a cohesive team, so certainly a tough game.
We’ve just shown lately, we’ve taken on some of the top sides, 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 done as well against them. That’s likely the test of the group - meeting the expectation of each game rather than just the major fixtures."
Squad News
Harvey Elliott has will not be staying at Aston Villa, news that was revealed by the manager Unai Emery in the build-up to this match. The boss said:
"We respect him as much as possible because he’s a top professional, very dedicated. The problem 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 need."
League Context
The tables have turned. 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 twice and Sean Dyche is charged with keeping the club in the top-flight this season. Since being appointed on 21 October, Dyche has won 10 Premier League points and the side are just above the relegation zone with 19 games of the season remaining.
