Aston Villa against Nottingham Forest: Top-Flight Match Preview
Preamble
Hello and welcome to this English top-flight fixture between Aston Villa and Nottingham Forest. The home side are the favourites to win in this early kick-off as they are excelling this season and are currently occupying third place, while Nottingham Forest are 17th and just four points outside of the drop zone.
Both clubs are coming into the game following a setback as Villa were beaten 4-1 by top-of-the-table Arsenal and Forest succumbed 2-0 to Everton.
This shapes up as a challenging task for Forest to secure all three points with Villa possessing one of the best home forms in Europe at the moment and they also achieved 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 kick-off at 12.30pm GMT.
Starting Elevens
The team news is in. Unai Emery 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.
Bench: Bizot, Digne, Sancho, Garcia, Carroll, Bogarde, Hemmings, Malen, Jimoh-Aloba.
Nottingham Forest have also 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.
Pre-Match Quotes
Forest boss Sean Dyche has said on his counterpart today:
"He has done a fantastic job as a manager there. Their signings has been good - spent a lot of money, to be fair, on some top players and they’ve forged it into a cohesive team, so certainly a difficult game.
We’ve just demonstrated lately, we’ve faced some of the larger clubs, 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 test of the group - meeting the expectation of each game rather than just the big games."
Player Situation
Harvey Elliott 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 said:
"We respect him as much as possible because he’s a excellent professional, very respectful. 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 made the decision two months ago we are not persuaded to make the move permanent, spending the money we need."
Season Snapshot
How times change. This time last year Nottingham Forest were in third place in the table, where Aston Villa are now. A lot of things have altered, 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 accumulated 10 Premier League points and the side are just outside the bottom three with 19 games of the season remaining.
