Villa v Nottingham Forest: Top-Flight Preview
Opening Thoughts
Welcome everyone to this Premier League fixture between Aston Villa and Nottingham Forest. Aston Villa are the favourites to win in this early kick-off 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.
Each side are coming into the game on the back of a defeat as Villa were beaten 4-1 by top-of-the-table Arsenal and Forest lost 2-0 to Everton.
This promises to be a difficult task for the visitors to obtain all three points with Villa possessing one of the best home forms in Europe at the moment and they also achieved a club 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 announced shortly before kick-off at 12.30pm GMT.
Team News
The starting XIs have been announced. Unai Emery 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 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.
Dugout Insights
Nottingham Forest manager Sean Dyche has remarked on his opponent today:
"He’s [Unai Emery] done a excellent job as a manager there. Their signings has been good - invested a lot of money, to be fair, on some excellent players and they’ve moulded it into a strong side, so definitely a difficult game.
We’ve just shown lately, we’ve played against some of the bigger teams, or the ones that are favoured every year, and done very well against them - and a couple of teams maybe not as fancied, we struggled more against them. That’s likely the challenge of the group - meeting the expectation of each game rather than just the big games."
Squad News
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 commented:
"We respect him all we can because he’s a top professional, very respectful. The situation we have with Harvey is this year he is on loan and if he is playing matches, we are obligated to buy him. We decided two months ago we are not persuaded to sign him, spending the money we need."
Form Guide
The tables have turned. This time last year Nottingham Forest were third in the table, where Villa are now. A lot of things have changed, including the manager twice and the current boss 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 above the bottom three with 19 games of the season to go.
