Villa against Nottingham Forest: Premier League Match Preview
Introduction
Hello and welcome to this English top-flight fixture between Aston 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 sitting third, while Nottingham Forest are seventeenth and just a handful of points outside of the relegation zone.
Both clubs are coming into the game off of the back of a defeat as Villa were defeated 4-1 by top-of-the-table Arsenal and Forest fell 2-0 to Everton.
This promises to be a difficult task for Sean Dyche’s side to obtain all three points with Villa having one of the best home records 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? We will find out very soon.
The starting lineups will be announced shortly before the start at 12.30pm GMT.
Team News
The lineups have been confirmed. The Villa boss has made four changes to his starting XI who lost 4-1 to Arsenal in their previous match.
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 likewise made four changes to their starting 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.
Pre-Match Quotes
Forest boss Sean Dyche has remarked on his opponent today:
"Emery has delivered a great job as a manager there. Their transfer business has been strong - spent a lot of money, to be fair, on some very good players and they’ve moulded it into a good unit, so certainly a difficult game.
We’ve just demonstrated lately, we’ve played against some of the top sides, or the ones that are favoured every year, and done very well against them - and a couple of teams maybe not as highly-rated, 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."
Player Situation
Harvey Elliott has no future at Aston Villa, news that was confirmed by the manager Emery in the lead-up to this match. The boss stated:
"We respect him all we can because he’s a excellent professional, very respectful. The issue we have with Harvey is this year he is on loan and if he is featuring regularly, we are obligated to buy him. We decided two months ago we are not persuaded to sign him, committing the money we need."
Season Snapshot
What a difference a year makes. This time last year Nottingham Forest were third in the table, where Aston Villa are now. A lot of things have altered, including the manager twice and the current boss is tasked with keeping the club in the Premier League this season. Since being named manager on 21 October, Dyche has secured 10 Premier League points and the side are just above the bottom three with 19 games of the season remaining.
