Aston Villa v Forest: Top-Flight Preview
Preamble
Welcome everyone to this Premier League clash between Villa and Nottingham Forest. Aston Villa are the favourites to win in this lunchtime start as they are flying this season and are currently occupying third place, while Forest are 17th and just four points outside of the drop zone.
Each side are coming into the game on the back of a setback as Villa were overcome 4-1 by league-leading Arsenal and Forest lost 2-0 to Everton.
This shapes up as a tough task for the visitors to come away with all three points with Villa boasting one of the best home forms 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? The answer will be revealed very soon.
The team news will be released shortly before kick-off at 12.30pm GMT.
Confirmed Lineups
The team news is in. The Villa boss has made four changes to his first eleven 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.
Substitutes: 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.
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.
Dugout Insights
Forest boss Sean Dyche has said on his counterpart today:
"He has done a great job as a manager there. Their signings has been good - invested a lot of money, to be fair, on some top players and they’ve forged it into a strong side, so definitely a challenging game.
We’ve just demonstrated lately, we’ve played against some of the bigger teams, or the ones that are fancied every year, and done very well against them - and a couple of teams perhaps not as fancied, we haven't performed as strongly against them. That’s probably the challenge of the group - meeting the challenge of each game rather than just the major fixtures."
Transfer Update
Harvey Elliott has will not be staying at Aston Villa, an update that was stated 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 issue we have with Harvey is this year he is a loan player and if he is featuring regularly, we are obligated to buy him. We decided two months ago we are not persuaded to make the move permanent, committing the money we need."
Season Snapshot
How times change. This time last year Nottingham Forest were third in the table, where Villa are now. A lot of things have shifted, including the manager twice and the current boss is tasked with keeping the club in the top-flight this season. Since being appointed 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 remaining.
