Villa against Forest: Top-Flight Preview
Opening Thoughts
Hello and welcome to this Premier League fixture between Villa and Nottingham Forest. Aston Villa are the expected winners to win in this early kick-off as they are flying this season and are currently sitting third, while Nottingham Forest are in 17th position and just a handful of points outside of the relegation zone.
The two teams are coming into the game off of the back of a setback as Villa were beaten 4-1 by league-leading Arsenal and Forest succumbed 2-0 to Everton.
This shapes up as a difficult task for Forest to come away with all three points with Villa boasting one of the best home records in Europe at the moment and they also recorded a club record of 36 wins across all competitions this season. But perhaps it’s new year, new story? All will become clear very soon.
The starting lineups will be released shortly before kick-off at 12.30pm GMT.
Confirmed Lineups
The team news is in. The Villa boss has made four changes to his starting lineup who were defeated by 4-1 to Arsenal last time out.
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 likewise made four adjustments to their matchday squad after a 2-0 loss to Everton.
Nott’m 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
Forest boss Sean Dyche has commented on his counterpart today:
"Emery has delivered a fantastic job as a manager there. Their signings has been impressive - spent a lot of money, to be fair, on some top players and they’ve forged it into a cohesive team, so definitely a challenging game.
We’ve just shown lately, we’ve taken on some of the top sides, or the ones that are tipped every year, and done very well against them - and a couple of teams perhaps not as fancied, we haven't performed as strongly against them. That’s likely the test of the group - rising to the challenge of each game rather than just the major fixtures."
Squad News
The midfielder has no future at Aston Villa, an update that was stated by the manager Emery in the build-up to this match. The boss said:
"We respect him all we can because he’s a excellent professional, very dedicated. 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 persuaded to make the move permanent, spending 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 Aston Villa are now. A lot of things have shifted, including the manager twice and the current boss is charged with keeping the club in the Premier League this season. Since being named manager 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.
