Aston Villa v Forest: Top-Flight Preview
Introduction
Welcome everyone to this English top-flight fixture between Aston Villa and Nottingham Forest. The home side are the favourites to win in this early kick-off as they are flying this season and are currently sitting third, while Nottingham Forest are in 17th position and just four points outside of the relegation zone.
Both clubs are coming into the game following a loss as Villa were beaten 4-1 by top-of-the-table Arsenal and Forest fell 2-0 to Everton.
This shapes up as a challenging task for Forest to secure all three points with Villa boasting 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 perhaps it’s a new year and a new narrative? The answer will be revealed very soon.
The team news will drop shortly before kick-off at 12.30pm GMT.
Starting Elevens
The team news is in. The Villa boss has made four changes to his starting XI who were defeated by 4-1 to Arsenal last time around.
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 matchday 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
Nottingham Forest manager Sean Dyche has remarked on his counterpart today:
"He has done a excellent job as a manager there. Their recruitment has been strong - spent a lot of money, to be fair, on some very good players and they’ve forged it into a cohesive team, so certainly a challenging game.
We’ve just shown lately, we’ve faced some of the top sides, or the ones that are fancied every year, and performed admirably against them - and a couple of teams maybe not as highly-rated, we struggled more against them. That’s probably the challenge of the group - meeting the expectation of each game rather than just the big games."
Squad News
Harvey Elliott has will not be staying at Aston Villa, an update that was confirmed by the manager Emery in the build-up to this match. The boss said:
"We respect him as much as possible because he’s a very good professional, very dedicated. The issue we have with Harvey is this year he is on loan and if he is featuring regularly, we are obligated to buy him. We decided two months ago we are not convinced to make the move permanent, spending the money we would need to."
Season Snapshot
What a difference a year makes. This time last year Nottingham Forest were in third place in the table, where Villa are now. A lot of things have altered, including the manager twice and Sean Dyche is tasked 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 above the bottom three with 19 games of the season to go.
