Aston Villa versus Forest: Top-Flight Match Preview
Introduction
Welcome everyone to this Premier League clash between Villa and Nottingham Forest. Aston Villa are the expected winners to win in this early kick-off as they are excelling this season and are currently in third, while Nottingham Forest are 17th and just four points outside of the relegation zone.
Each side are entering the game off of the back of a defeat as Villa were defeated 4-1 by league-leading Arsenal and Forest succumbed 2-0 to Everton.
This shapes up as a tough task for Sean Dyche’s side to come away with all three points with Villa boasting one of the best home records in Europe at the moment and they also achieved a club 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 confirmed XIs will be released shortly before kick-off at 12.30pm GMT.
Confirmed Lineups
The lineups have been confirmed. The Villa boss has made a quartet of alterations to his starting XI who were defeated by 4-1 to Arsenal last time out.
Aston 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 defeat 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 remarked on his counterpart today:
"He’s [Unai Emery] done a fantastic job as a manager there. Their recruitment has been impressive - 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 tough game.
We’ve just shown lately, we’ve faced some of the bigger teams, or the ones that are fancied every year, and held our own against them - and a couple of teams perhaps not as highly-rated, we struggled more against them. That’s likely the challenge of the group - meeting the expectation of each game rather than just the major fixtures."
Transfer Update
Harvey Elliott has will not be staying at Aston Villa, an update that was stated by the manager Emery in the lead-up to this match. The boss stated:
"We respect 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 a loan player and if he is featuring regularly, we must buy him. We decided two months ago we are not persuaded to sign him, committing the money we would need to."
Form Guide
The tables have turned. This time last year Forest were third in the table, where Aston Villa are now. A lot of things have changed, including the manager twice and the current boss is charged 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 relegation zone with 19 games of the season remaining.
