Aston Villa versus Forest: Top-Flight Preview
Introduction
Hello and welcome to this English top-flight clash between Aston Villa and Nottingham Forest. Aston Villa are the strong favourites to win in this lunchtime start as they are excelling this season and are currently in third, while Nottingham Forest are 17th and just a handful of points outside of the drop zone.
Each side are coming into the game following a defeat as Villa were overcome 4-1 by top-of-the-table Arsenal and Forest lost 2-0 to Everton.
It will be a tough task for the visitors to come away with all three points with Villa boasting one of the best home records in Europe at the moment and they also achieved a team record of 36 wins across all competitions this season. But perhaps 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.
Team News
The team news is in. Unai Emery has made a quartet of alterations to his starting lineup who were defeated by 4-1 to Arsenal in their previous match.
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 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.
Manager Comments
Forest boss Sean Dyche has commented on his counterpart today:
"He has done a excellent job as a manager there. Their signings has been impressive - spent a lot of money, to be fair, on some top players and they’ve moulded it into a good unit, so definitely 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 done very well against them - and a couple of teams maybe not as fancied, we haven’t done as well against them. That’s probably the challenge of the group - rising to the expectation of each game rather than just the big games."
Player Situation
The midfielder has no future at Aston Villa, an update that was stated by the manager Unai Emery in the build-up to this match. The boss said:
"We respect him as much as possible because he’s a excellent professional, very respectful. The problem we have with Harvey is this year he is a loan player and if he is featuring regularly, we must buy him. We made the decision two months ago we are not convinced to make the move permanent, committing the money we would need to."
Form Guide
The tables have turned. This time last year Nottingham Forest were in third place in the table, where Villa are now. A lot of things have changed, including the manager on two occasions and the current boss is tasked with keeping the club in the Premier League this season. Since being appointed on 21 October, Dyche has accumulated 10 Premier League points and the side are just above the bottom three with 19 games of the season to go.
