Aston Villa v Forest: Top-Flight Build-Up
Opening Thoughts
Welcome everyone to this Premier League fixture between Villa and Nottingham Forest. Villa will be the strong favourites to win in this lunchtime start as they are excelling this season and are currently occupying third place, while Nottingham Forest are seventeenth and just four points outside of the drop zone.
Both clubs are entering the game off of the back of a loss as Villa were beaten 4-1 by league-leading Arsenal and Forest succumbed 2-0 to Everton.
This promises to be a challenging task for Forest to obtain all three points with Villa having one of the best home forms in Europe at the moment and they also recorded a team record of 36 wins across all competitions this season. But perhaps it’s a new year and a new narrative? We will find out very soon.
The team news will drop shortly before kick-off at 12.30pm GMT.
Starting Elevens
The starting XIs have been announced. The Villa boss has made four changes to his first eleven who were defeated by 4-1 to Arsenal in their previous match.
Villa: Martinez, Cash, Konsa, Lindelof, Maatsen, Kamara, Tielemans, McGinn, Buendia, Rogers, Watkins.
Bench: Bizot, Digne, Sancho, Garcia, Carroll, Bogarde, Hemmings, Malen, Jimoh-Aloba.
Forest have also made four adjustments 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.
Manager Comments
Forest boss Sean Dyche has said on his opponent today:
"He’s [Unai Emery] done a fantastic job as a manager there. Their recruitment has been strong - invested a lot of money, to be fair, on some top players and they’ve shaped it into a strong side, so definitely a tough game.
We’ve just demonstrated lately, we’ve played against some of the top sides, or the ones that are fancied 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 probably the test of the group - rising to the expectation of each game rather than just the major fixtures."
Squad News
The midfielder has will not be staying at Aston Villa, news that was revealed by the manager Emery in the build-up to this match. The boss stated:
"We respect him as much as possible because he’s a very good professional, very dedicated. The issue we have with Harvey is this year he is a loan player and if he is playing matches, we must buy him. We made the decision 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 shifted, including the manager twice and Sean Dyche is charged with keeping the club in the Premier League this season. Since being appointed on 21 October, Dyche has secured 10 Premier League points and the side are just above the relegation zone with 19 games of the season to go.
