Villa versus Forest: Top-Flight Preview
Introduction
Welcome everyone to this English top-flight encounter between 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 sitting third, while Nottingham Forest are 17th and just a handful of points outside of the relegation zone.
Each side are entering the game off of the back of a setback as Villa were overcome 4-1 by league-leading Arsenal and Forest fell 2-0 to Everton.
This shapes up as a tough task for Sean Dyche’s side to come away with all three points with Villa having 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 maybe it’s new year, new story? The answer will be revealed very soon.
The team news will drop shortly before the start at 12.30pm GMT.
Confirmed Lineups
The lineups have been confirmed. Unai Emery has made a quartet of alterations to his first eleven who lost 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.
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.
Substitutes: Sels, Morato, Awoniyi, Luiz, Kalimuendo, McAtee, Zinchenko, Savona, Abbott.
Pre-Match Quotes
Nottingham Forest manager Sean Dyche has said on his opponent today:
"Emery has delivered a great job as a manager there. Their recruitment has been good - spent a lot of money, to be fair, on some excellent players and they’ve moulded it into a good unit, so definitely a challenging game.
We’ve just shown 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 likely the challenge of the group - meeting the expectation of each game rather than just the major fixtures."
Transfer Update
Harvey Elliott has no future at Aston Villa, news that was revealed by the manager Unai Emery in the lead-up to this match. The boss said:
"I am respecting him as much as possible because he’s a very good professional, very respectful. The problem 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 persuaded to make the move permanent, committing the money we would need to."
Form Guide
How times change. This time last year Forest were in third place in the table, where Villa are now. A lot of things have changed, including the manager twice and Sean Dyche is charged with keeping the club in the Premier League this season. Since being appointed 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 to go.