Villa against Nottingham Forest: Premier League Match Preview
Opening Thoughts
Greetings and welcome to this English top-flight encounter between Villa and Nottingham Forest. Aston Villa are the expected winners to win in this early kick-off as they are soaring this season and are currently occupying third place, while Forest are in 17th position and just four points outside of the relegation zone.
Both clubs are entering the game off of the back of a loss as Villa were defeated 4-1 by top-of-the-table Arsenal and Forest lost 2-0 to Everton.
This promises to be a challenging task for Forest to come away with all three points with Villa having 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 confirmed XIs will be announced shortly before the start at 12.30pm GMT.
Team News
The lineups have been confirmed. The Villa boss has made a quartet of alterations to his first eleven who lost 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.
Nottingham Forest have likewise 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.
Manager Comments
Nottingham Forest manager Sean Dyche has said on his counterpart today:
"He has done a great job as a manager there. Their recruitment has been good - invested a lot of money, to be fair, on some very good players and they’ve shaped it into a good unit, so certainly a challenging game.
We’ve just demonstrated lately, we’ve taken on some of the top sides, or the ones that are favoured every year, and held our own against them - and a couple of teams maybe 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 major fixtures."
Transfer Update
The midfielder has no future at Aston Villa, an update that was revealed by the manager Emery in the build-up to this match. The boss stated:
"We respect him all we can because he’s a top professional, very dedicated. The problem we have with Harvey is this year he is on loan 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."
Form Guide
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 changed, 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 secured 10 Premier League points and the side are just above the relegation zone with 19 games of the season remaining.