Aston Villa v Forest: Top-Flight Preview
Introduction
Hello and welcome to this English top-flight fixture between Aston Villa and Forest. Aston Villa are the favourites to win in this lunchtime start as they are excelling this season and are currently occupying third place, while Nottingham Forest are in 17th position and just a handful of points outside of the relegation zone.
The two teams are entering the game off of the back of a setback as Villa were overcome 4-1 by league-leading Arsenal and Forest lost 2-0 to Everton.
This promises to be a challenging task for Sean Dyche’s side to secure all three points with Villa boasting one of the best home records in Europe at the moment and they also achieved a club record of 36 wins across all competitions this season. But maybe it’s a new year and a new narrative? All will become clear very soon.
The team news will drop shortly before kick-off at 12.30pm GMT.
Team News
The lineups have been confirmed. Unai Emery has made four changes to his starting lineup who lost 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.
Forest have also made four adjustments 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.
Substitutes: Sels, Morato, Awoniyi, Luiz, Kalimuendo, McAtee, Zinchenko, Savona, Abbott.
Dugout Insights
Nottingham Forest manager Sean Dyche has commented on his counterpart today:
"Emery has delivered a excellent job as a manager there. Their recruitment has been impressive - invested a lot of money, to be fair, on some excellent players and they’ve shaped it into a cohesive team, so certainly a difficult game.
We’ve just demonstrated lately, we’ve taken on some of the top sides, or the ones that are favoured every year, and done very well against them - and a couple of teams perhaps not as fancied, we struggled more against them. That’s likely the test of the group - rising to the challenge of each game rather than just the big games."
Squad News
The midfielder has will not be staying at Aston Villa, an update that was stated by the manager Emery in the lead-up to this match. The boss said:
"We respect him all we can because he’s a very good professional, very dedicated. The situation we have with Harvey is this year he is on loan and if he is featuring regularly, we are obligated to buy him. We made the decision two months ago we are not convinced to sign him, committing the money we need."
Form Guide
What a difference a year makes. 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 tasked with keeping the club in the top-flight this season. Since being named manager on 21 October, Dyche has won 10 Premier League points and the side are just outside the relegation zone with 19 games of the season remaining.