Aston Villa against Forest: Top-Flight Match Preview
Opening Thoughts
Greetings and welcome to this English top-flight clash between Aston Villa and Forest. Aston Villa are the favourites to win in this lunchtime start as they are flying this season and are currently occupying third place, while Forest are 17th and just a handful of points outside of the relegation zone.
Both clubs are coming into the game off of the back of a loss as Villa were overcome 4-1 by top-of-the-table Arsenal and Forest fell 2-0 to Everton.
This promises to be a challenging task for the visitors 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 team 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 starting lineups will be released shortly before the start at 12.30pm GMT.
Team News
The lineups have been confirmed. The Villa boss has made four changes to his first eleven who lost 4-1 to Arsenal in their previous match.
Aston Villa: Martinez, Cash, Konsa, Lindelof, Maatsen, Kamara, Tielemans, McGinn, Buendia, Rogers, Watkins.
Substitutes: Bizot, Digne, Sancho, Garcia, Carroll, Bogarde, Hemmings, Malen, Jimoh-Aloba.
Forest have also made four adjustments to their starting 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.
Dugout Insights
Nottingham Forest manager Sean Dyche has commented on his opponent today:
"Emery has delivered a excellent job as a manager there. Their transfer business has been impressive - spent a lot of money, to be fair, on some excellent players and they’ve shaped it into a strong side, so certainly a difficult game.
We’ve just demonstrated lately, we’ve taken on some of the bigger teams, or the ones that are fancied every year, and held our own against them - and a couple of teams perhaps not as highly-rated, 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 major fixtures."
Transfer Update
Harvey Elliott has no future at Aston Villa, news that was revealed by the manager Unai Emery in the build-up to this match. The boss commented:
"I am respecting him all we can because he’s a top professional, very dedicated. The problem we have with Harvey is this year he is on loan and if he is featuring regularly, we must buy him. We made the decision two months ago we are not convinced to sign him, committing the money we need."
Season Snapshot
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 shifted, 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 won 10 Premier League points and the side are just outside the bottom three with 19 games of the season to go.
