Aston Villa versus Nottingham Forest: Top-Flight Match Preview
Introduction
Greetings and welcome to this Premier League fixture between Aston Villa and Nottingham Forest. Aston Villa are the expected winners to win in this lunchtime start as they are excelling this season and are currently sitting third, while Nottingham Forest are seventeenth and just four points outside of the relegation zone.
Each side are coming into the game on the back of a setback as Villa were overcome 4-1 by top-of-the-table Arsenal and Forest succumbed 2-0 to Everton.
It will be a tough task for Sean Dyche’s side to obtain all three points with Villa having one of the best home forms in Europe at the moment and they also set a team record of 36 wins across all competitions this season. But maybe it’s a new year and a new narrative? We will find out very soon.
The confirmed XIs will be released shortly before kick-off at 12.30pm GMT.
Confirmed Lineups
The starting XIs have been announced. Unai Emery has made four changes to his first eleven who were defeated by 4-1 to Arsenal last time out.
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 starting squad after a 2-0 loss 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.
Pre-Match Quotes
Nottingham Forest manager Sean Dyche has said on his opponent today:
"Emery has delivered a fantastic job as a manager there. Their transfer business has been good - invested a lot of money, to be fair, on some top players and they’ve shaped it into a good unit, so definitely a tough game.
We’ve just demonstrated lately, we’ve played against some of the larger clubs, or the ones that are fancied every year, and performed admirably against them - and a couple of teams maybe not as fancied, we haven’t done as well against them. That’s probably the test of the group - rising to 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 lead-up to this match. The boss said:
"I am respecting him as much as possible because he’s a excellent 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 convinced to make the move permanent, committing the money we would need to."
League Context
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 named manager 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 remaining.
