Aston Villa v Nottingham Forest: Top-Flight Preview
Opening Thoughts
Welcome everyone to this Premier League clash between Villa and Nottingham Forest. Villa will be the expected winners to win in this early kick-off as they are soaring this season and are currently occupying third place, while Nottingham Forest are in 17th position and just four points outside of the drop zone.
Each side are coming into the game off of the back of a defeat as Villa were overcome 4-1 by league-leading Arsenal and Forest fell 2-0 to Everton.
It will be a difficult task for the visitors to obtain all three points with Villa having one of the best home forms in Europe at the moment and they also set a team record of 36 wins across all competitions this season. But maybe it’s new year, new story? All will become clear very soon.
The starting lineups will be released shortly before the start at 12.30pm GMT.
Confirmed Lineups
The starting XIs have been announced. Unai Emery has made four changes to his starting XI who lost 4-1 to Arsenal last time out.
Aston Villa: Martinez, Cash, Konsa, Lindelof, Maatsen, Kamara, Tielemans, McGinn, Buendia, Rogers, Watkins.
Substitutes: Bizot, Digne, Sancho, Garcia, Carroll, Bogarde, Hemmings, Malen, Jimoh-Aloba.
Nottingham Forest have also made four adjustments to their starting squad after a 2-0 defeat 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
Forest boss Sean Dyche has commented on his opponent today:
"He has done a excellent job as a manager there. Their recruitment has been impressive - spent a lot of money, to be fair, on some top players and they’ve shaped it into a cohesive team, so definitely a tough game.
We’ve just shown lately, we’ve played against some of the bigger teams, or the ones that are tipped every year, and performed admirably against them - and a couple of teams maybe not as fancied, we haven’t done as well against them. That’s probably the test of the group - rising to the challenge of each game rather than just the big games."
Transfer Update
The midfielder has will not be staying at Aston Villa, news that was confirmed by the manager Emery in the build-up to this match. The boss said:
"I am respecting him all we can because he’s a top professional, very dedicated. The issue 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 persuaded to sign him, spending the money we need."
Form Guide
How times change. This time last year Forest were in third place in the table, where Aston Villa are now. A lot of things have altered, including the manager on two occasions and the current boss is tasked with keeping the club in the top-flight this season. Since being named manager 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 remaining.
