Villa v Forest: Top-Flight Preview
Preamble
Greetings and welcome to this Premier League fixture between Villa and Forest. The home side are the expected winners to win in this lunchtime start as they are excelling this season and are currently in third, while Nottingham Forest are 17th and just four points outside of the relegation zone.
Both clubs are entering the game following a defeat as Villa were beaten 4-1 by league-leading Arsenal and Forest succumbed 2-0 to Everton.
This shapes up as a challenging task for Sean Dyche’s side to come away with all three points with Villa boasting 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 perhaps it’s a new year and a new narrative? All will become clear very soon.
The team news will drop shortly before the start at 12.30pm GMT.
Confirmed Lineups
The team news is in. The Villa boss has made a quartet of alterations to his starting lineup who were defeated by 4-1 to Arsenal last time out.
Villa: Martinez, Cash, Konsa, Lindelof, Maatsen, Kamara, Tielemans, McGinn, Buendia, Rogers, Watkins.
Substitutes: Bizot, Digne, Sancho, Garcia, Carroll, Bogarde, Hemmings, Malen, Jimoh-Aloba.
Nottingham Forest have also made four changes to their starting 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.
Manager Comments
Forest boss Sean Dyche has said on his counterpart today:
"He has done a great job as a manager there. Their transfer business has been impressive - invested a lot of money, to be fair, on some top players and they’ve forged 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 tipped 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 probably the test of the group - meeting the expectation of each game rather than just the big games."
Player Situation
Harvey Elliott has will not be staying at Aston Villa, news that was revealed by the manager Unai Emery in the build-up to this match. The boss commented:
"We respect him as much as possible because he’s a excellent professional, very dedicated. The situation we have with Harvey is this year he is a loan player and if he is playing matches, we are obligated to buy him. We made the decision two months ago we are not persuaded to make the move permanent, spending the money we would need to."
Form Guide
How times change. This time last year Forest were third in the table, where Aston Villa are now. A lot of things have changed, including the manager twice and the current boss is charged with keeping the club in the Premier League 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.
