Villa v Nottingham Forest: Premier League Match Preview
Preamble
Hello and welcome to this English top-flight fixture between Aston Villa and Nottingham Forest. Aston Villa are the favourites to win in this lunchtime start as they are flying this season and are currently in third, while Forest are seventeenth and just four points outside of the drop zone.
Both clubs are entering the game following a defeat as Villa were overcome 4-1 by top-of-the-table Arsenal and Forest succumbed 2-0 to Everton.
This shapes up as a difficult task for the visitors to obtain 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 team news will be released shortly before the start at 12.30pm GMT.
Confirmed Lineups
The lineups have been confirmed. The Villa boss has made four changes to his first eleven who lost 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 likewise made four changes to their matchday squad after a 2-0 loss 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.
Pre-Match Quotes
Forest boss Sean Dyche has said on his opponent today:
"Emery has delivered a great job as a manager there. Their recruitment has been good - spent a lot of money, to be fair, on some excellent players and they’ve moulded it into a good unit, so definitely a difficult game.
We’ve just shown lately, we’ve played against some of the larger clubs, or the ones that are fancied every year, and done very well against them - and a couple of teams maybe not as fancied, we haven't performed as strongly against them. That’s likely the test of the group - meeting the expectation of each game rather than just the big games."
Squad News
Harvey Elliott has no future at Aston Villa, an update that was confirmed by the manager Emery in the build-up to this match. The boss stated:
"I am respecting him all we can because he’s a top professional, very respectful. The situation we have with Harvey is this year he is on loan and if he is playing matches, we must buy him. We decided two months ago we are not convinced to sign him, spending the money we would need to."
Form Guide
The tables have turned. This time last year Forest were in third place in the table, where Aston Villa are now. A lot of things have shifted, including the manager on two occasions and Sean Dyche is tasked with keeping the club in the top-flight this season. Since being named manager on 21 October, Dyche has won 10 Premier League points and the side are just outside the bottom three with 19 games of the season to go.
