Villa v Nottingham Forest: Top-Flight Match Preview
Introduction
Hello and welcome to this Premier League encounter between Aston Villa and Forest. Villa will be the expected winners to win in this lunchtime start as they are excelling this season and are currently occupying third place, while Forest are seventeenth and just four points outside of the relegation zone.
Each side are coming into the game following a setback as Villa were overcome 4-1 by top-of-the-table Arsenal and Forest succumbed 2-0 to Everton.
It will be a difficult task for the visitors 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 maybe it’s new year, new story? All will become clear very soon.
The starting lineups will be released shortly before kick-off at 12.30pm GMT.
Team News
The starting XIs have been announced. The Villa boss has made a quartet of alterations 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.
Forest have also made four changes to their starting squad after a 2-0 loss 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
Forest boss Sean Dyche has commented on his opponent today:
"He has done a great 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 forged it into a good unit, so definitely a tough game.
We’ve just shown lately, we’ve taken on some of the larger clubs, or the ones that are fancied every year, and performed admirably against them - and a couple of teams perhaps not as highly-rated, we haven’t done as well against them. That’s probably the challenge of the group - rising to the expectation of each game rather than just the big games."
Squad News
Harvey Elliott has no future at Aston Villa, news that was stated by the manager Emery in the lead-up to this match. The boss commented:
"I am respecting him all we can because he’s a excellent professional, very respectful. 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 make the move permanent, committing the money we would need to."
League Context
The tables have turned. 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 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 bottom three with 19 games of the season remaining.
