Aston Villa versus Nottingham Forest: Premier League Match Preview
Introduction
Greetings and welcome to this English top-flight fixture between Villa and Nottingham Forest. The home side are the expected winners to win in this early kick-off as they are flying this season and are currently sitting third, while Nottingham Forest are seventeenth and just four points outside of the drop zone.
Both clubs are coming into the game off of the back of 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 Sean Dyche’s side to come away with all three points with Villa having 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 perhaps it’s new year, new story? All will become clear very soon.
The confirmed XIs will be announced shortly before the start at 12.30pm GMT.
Starting Elevens
The lineups have been confirmed. Unai Emery has made a quartet of alterations to his starting XI 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 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.
Substitutes: Sels, Morato, Awoniyi, Luiz, Kalimuendo, McAtee, Zinchenko, Savona, Abbott.
Dugout Insights
Nottingham Forest manager Sean Dyche has remarked on his opponent today:
"Emery has delivered a fantastic job as a manager there. Their signings has been strong - invested a lot of money, to be fair, on some excellent players and they’ve shaped it into a cohesive team, so certainly a challenging game.
We’ve just shown lately, we’ve faced some of the bigger teams, or the ones that are favoured every year, and performed admirably 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 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 revealed by the manager Unai Emery in the lead-up to this match. The boss commented:
"We respect him all we can because he’s a top professional, very respectful. The issue we have with Harvey is this year he is on loan and if he is playing matches, we must buy him. We made the decision two months ago we are not convinced to sign him, committing the money we would need to."
Form Guide
How times change. This time last year Forest were in third place in the table, where Villa are now. A lot of things have altered, including the manager on two occasions and Sean Dyche is charged with keeping the club in the Premier League this season. Since being named manager on 21 October, Dyche has accumulated 10 Premier League points and the side are just above the relegation zone with 19 games of the season remaining.
