Villa v Nottingham Forest: Premier League Match Preview
Opening Thoughts
Welcome everyone to this English top-flight clash between Aston Villa and Nottingham Forest. Villa will be the favourites to win in this early kick-off as they are flying this season and are currently occupying third place, while Forest are in 17th position and just a handful of points outside of the drop zone.
Both clubs are entering the game off of the back of a defeat as Villa were defeated 4-1 by top-of-the-table Arsenal and Forest lost 2-0 to Everton.
This promises to be a challenging 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 set 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 be released shortly before kick-off at 12.30pm GMT.
Starting Elevens
The lineups have been confirmed. The Villa boss has made four changes to his first eleven who lost 4-1 to Arsenal last time around.
Aston Villa: Martinez, Cash, Konsa, Lindelof, Maatsen, Kamara, Tielemans, McGinn, Buendia, Rogers, Watkins.
Substitutes: Bizot, Digne, Sancho, Garcia, Carroll, Bogarde, Hemmings, Malen, Jimoh-Aloba.
Forest have likewise made four changes to their starting squad after a 2-0 defeat to Everton.
Nott’m Forest: Victor, Williams, Murillo, Anderson, Gibbs-White, Dominguez, I Jesus, Hutchinson, Bakwa, Milenkovic, Aina.
Bench: Sels, Morato, Awoniyi, Luiz, Kalimuendo, McAtee, Zinchenko, Savona, Abbott.
Manager Comments
Nottingham Forest manager Sean Dyche has said on his counterpart today:
"Emery has delivered a great job as a manager there. Their transfer business has been good - invested a lot of money, to be fair, on some very good players and they’ve shaped it into a cohesive team, so definitely a difficult game.
We’ve just demonstrated lately, we’ve taken on some of the larger clubs, or the ones that are favoured every year, and performed admirably against them - and a couple of teams perhaps not as highly-rated, we haven't performed as strongly against them. That’s likely the challenge of the group - meeting the expectation of each game rather than just the major fixtures."
Squad News
The midfielder has will not be staying at Aston Villa, news that was revealed by the manager Unai Emery in the lead-up to this match. The boss said:
"We respect him as much as possible because he’s a excellent professional, very respectful. The issue 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 convinced to sign him, committing the money we would need to."
Season Snapshot
The tables have turned. This time last year Forest were in third place in the table, where Aston Villa are now. A lot of things have shifted, including the manager on two occasions and Sean Dyche is charged with keeping the club in the top-flight 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 remaining.
