Aston Villa versus Forest: Top-Flight Preview
Introduction
Greetings and welcome to this English top-flight clash between Villa and Nottingham Forest. The home side are the expected winners to win in this early kick-off as they are soaring this season and are currently occupying third place, while Forest are in 17th position and just four points outside of the drop zone.
Each side are entering the game following a defeat as Villa were overcome 4-1 by league-leading Arsenal and Forest lost 2-0 to Everton.
It will be a tough task for the visitors to obtain all three points with Villa having one of the best home records 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? The answer will be revealed very soon.
The team news will drop shortly before kick-off at 12.30pm GMT.
Confirmed Lineups
The team news is in. Unai Emery has made a quartet of alterations to his first eleven who were defeated by 4-1 to Arsenal last time around.
Aston Villa: Martinez, Cash, Konsa, Lindelof, Maatsen, Kamara, Tielemans, McGinn, Buendia, Rogers, Watkins.
Bench: Bizot, Digne, Sancho, Garcia, Carroll, Bogarde, Hemmings, Malen, Jimoh-Aloba.
Nottingham Forest have likewise made four changes to their matchday 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 opponent today:
"Emery has delivered a fantastic job as a manager there. Their transfer business has been strong - spent a lot of money, to be fair, on some very good players and they’ve shaped it into a cohesive team, so definitely a challenging game.
We’ve just shown lately, we’ve taken on some of the bigger teams, or the ones that are favoured every year, and done very well against them - and a couple of teams perhaps not as highly-rated, we struggled more against them. That’s likely the test of the group - meeting the expectation of each game rather than just the big games."
Transfer Update
The midfielder has no future at Aston Villa, an update that was stated by the manager Unai Emery in the lead-up to this match. The boss commented:
"I am respecting him as much as possible because he’s a excellent professional, very respectful. The issue we have with Harvey is this year he is a loan player and if he is featuring regularly, we are obligated to buy him. We decided two months ago we are not persuaded to make the move permanent, spending the money we would need to."
Season Snapshot
What a difference a year makes. 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 the current boss 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.
