Aston Villa versus Forest: Top-Flight Preview
Opening Thoughts
Greetings and welcome to this Premier League clash between Villa and Nottingham 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 in 17th position and just four points outside of the drop zone.
The two teams are coming into the game off of the back of a setback as Villa were overcome 4-1 by league-leading Arsenal and Forest fell 2-0 to Everton.
It will be a tough task for Sean Dyche’s side to secure 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 starting lineups will be announced shortly before kick-off at 12.30pm GMT.
Confirmed Lineups
The lineups have been confirmed. The Villa boss has made four changes to his first eleven who lost 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 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.
Pre-Match Quotes
Nottingham Forest manager Sean Dyche has remarked on his opponent today:
"He’s [Unai Emery] done a great job as a manager there. Their signings has been good - invested a lot of money, to be fair, on some very good players and they’ve moulded it into a strong side, so definitely a difficult game.
We’ve just demonstrated lately, we’ve taken on some of the top sides, or the ones that are favoured every year, and held our own against them - and a couple of teams perhaps not as fancied, we struggled more against them. That’s probably the test of the group - meeting 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 confirmed by the manager Unai Emery in the lead-up to this match. The boss said:
"We respect him as much as possible because he’s a very good professional, very dedicated. The problem 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 convinced to make the move permanent, spending the money we need."
League Context
How times change. This time last year Nottingham Forest were third in the table, where Villa are now. A lot of things have shifted, including the manager on two occasions and Sean Dyche 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 relegation zone with 19 games of the season to go.
