Villa v Forest: Top-Flight Preview
Opening Thoughts
Hello and welcome to this Premier League fixture between Aston Villa and Forest. Aston Villa are the expected winners to win in this early kick-off as they are excelling this season and are currently occupying third place, while Nottingham Forest are in 17th position and just four points outside of the relegation zone.
Both clubs are entering the game following a defeat as Villa were defeated 4-1 by top-of-the-table Arsenal and Forest succumbed 2-0 to Everton.
It will be a difficult task for Forest to obtain 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 perhaps it’s new year, new story? We will find out very soon.
The starting lineups will be released shortly before kick-off at 12.30pm GMT.
Starting Elevens
The starting XIs have been announced. The Villa boss has made a quartet of alterations to his first eleven who were defeated by 4-1 to Arsenal last time around.
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 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.
Bench: Sels, Morato, Awoniyi, Luiz, Kalimuendo, McAtee, Zinchenko, Savona, Abbott.
Manager Comments
Forest boss Sean Dyche has commented on his counterpart today:
"Emery has delivered a excellent job as a manager there. Their recruitment has been impressive - spent a lot of money, to be fair, on some top players and they’ve forged it into a strong side, so certainly 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 held our own against them - and a couple of teams perhaps not as fancied, we haven’t done as well against them. That’s probably the challenge of the group - rising to the challenge of each game rather than just the big games."
Player Situation
The midfielder has no future at Aston Villa, an update that was revealed by the manager Emery in the lead-up to this match. The boss said:
"I am respecting him all we can because he’s a top professional, very dedicated. The situation we have with Harvey is this year he is on loan and if he is playing matches, 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 top-flight this season. Since being named manager on 21 October, Dyche has accumulated 10 Premier League points and the side are just above the relegation zone with 19 games of the season to go.
