Villa versus Nottingham Forest: Top-Flight Preview
Opening Thoughts
Welcome everyone 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 flying this season and are currently occupying third place, while Nottingham Forest are seventeenth and just four points outside of the relegation zone.
Both clubs are entering the game off of the back of a setback as Villa were defeated 4-1 by league-leading Arsenal and Forest lost 2-0 to Everton.
This promises to be a tough task for Forest to obtain all three points with Villa possessing 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 perhaps 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.
Starting Elevens
The starting XIs have been announced. The Villa boss has made four changes to his starting XI who were defeated by 4-1 to Arsenal in their previous match.
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 also made four changes to their matchday squad after a 2-0 defeat to Everton.
Nott’m Forest: Victor, Williams, Murillo, Anderson, Gibbs-White, Dominguez, I Jesus, Hutchinson, Bakwa, Milenkovic, Aina.
Bench: Sels, Morato, Awoniyi, Luiz, Kalimuendo, McAtee, Zinchenko, Savona, Abbott.
Manager Comments
Forest boss Sean Dyche has commented on his opponent today:
"Emery has delivered a excellent job as a manager there. Their signings has been impressive - spent a lot of money, to be fair, on some top players and they’ve shaped it into a good unit, so definitely a difficult game.
We’ve just demonstrated lately, we’ve taken on some of the top sides, or the ones that are favoured every year, and done very well against them - and a couple of teams maybe not as highly-rated, we struggled more against them. That’s probably the challenge of the group - rising to the challenge of each game rather than just the major fixtures."
Player Situation
The midfielder has no future at Aston Villa, an update that was revealed by the manager Unai Emery in the lead-up to this match. The boss commented:
"I am respecting him as much as possible because he’s a excellent professional, very respectful. The issue 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, 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 Villa are now. A lot of things have altered, including the manager twice 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 outside the relegation zone with 19 games of the season to go.
