Aston Villa against Forest: Top-Flight Preview
Introduction
Hello and welcome to this English top-flight fixture between Villa and Forest. Villa will be the favourites to win in this early kick-off as they are soaring this season and are currently occupying third place, while Nottingham Forest are seventeenth and just a handful of points outside of the relegation zone.
The two teams are coming into the game off of the back of a defeat as Villa were defeated 4-1 by top-of-the-table Arsenal and Forest fell 2-0 to Everton.
This shapes up as a tough task for the visitors to obtain all three points with Villa boasting 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 a new year and a new narrative? All will become clear very soon.
The starting lineups will drop shortly before kick-off at 12.30pm GMT.
Team News
The starting XIs have been announced. The Villa boss has made four changes to his starting XI 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.
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 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
Forest boss Sean Dyche has commented on his counterpart today:
"Emery has delivered a great job as a manager there. Their transfer business has been good - invested a lot of money, to be fair, on some top players and they’ve moulded it into a cohesive team, so certainly a tough game.
We’ve just demonstrated lately, we’ve faced some of the bigger teams, or the ones that are fancied every year, and done very well 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 - rising to the challenge of each game rather than just the big games."
Squad News
The midfielder 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 stated:
"I am respecting him all we can because he’s a top professional, very respectful. The situation we have with Harvey is this year he is a loan player and if he is playing matches, we are obligated to buy him. We decided two months ago we are not convinced to sign him, spending the money we need."
Season Snapshot
What a difference a year makes. This time last year Nottingham Forest were third in the table, where Villa are now. A lot of things have changed, including the manager on two occasions and Sean Dyche is tasked with keeping the club in the Premier League this season. Since being appointed on 21 October, Dyche has secured 10 Premier League points and the side are just outside the bottom three with 19 games of the season to go.
