Villa against Forest: Premier League Match Preview
Introduction
Greetings and welcome to this English top-flight encounter between Villa and Nottingham Forest. The home side are the strong favourites to win in this early kick-off as they are flying this season and are currently sitting third, while Forest are 17th and just four points outside of the drop zone.
Both clubs are coming into the game on the back of a setback as Villa were defeated 4-1 by top-of-the-table Arsenal and Forest lost 2-0 to Everton.
This shapes up as a tough task for Sean Dyche’s side to obtain all three points with Villa boasting one of the best home records in Europe at the moment and they also recorded a team record of 36 wins across all competitions this season. But perhaps it’s new year, new story? We will find out very soon.
The team news will be announced shortly before the start at 12.30pm GMT.
Team News
The lineups have been confirmed. Unai Emery has made a quartet of alterations to his first eleven 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 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
Nottingham Forest manager Sean Dyche has said on his opponent today:
"He has done a great job as a manager there. Their recruitment has been impressive - invested a lot of money, to be fair, on some top players and they’ve shaped it into a good unit, so definitely a tough game.
We’ve just shown lately, we’ve taken on some of the bigger teams, or the ones that are favoured every year, and performed admirably against them - and a couple of teams perhaps not as fancied, we haven't performed as strongly against them. That’s likely the challenge of the group - rising to the challenge of each game rather than just the big games."
Transfer Update
Harvey Elliott 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:
"I am respecting him as much as possible because he’s a very good 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 made the decision two months ago we are not persuaded to sign him, spending the money we would need to."
League Context
How times change. This time last year Forest were in third place in the table, where Aston 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 bottom three with 19 games of the season remaining.
