Aston Villa v Nottingham Forest: Top-Flight Build-Up
Preamble
Greetings and welcome to this English top-flight encounter between Villa and Nottingham Forest. The home side are the expected winners to win in this early kick-off as they are excelling this season and are currently in third, while Forest are 17th and just four points outside of the relegation zone.
Each side are entering the game following a setback as Villa were overcome 4-1 by top-of-the-table Arsenal and Forest lost 2-0 to Everton.
This shapes up as a tough task for the visitors to secure all three points with Villa having one of the best home records 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? We will find out very soon.
The team news will be released shortly before the start at 12.30pm GMT.
Starting Elevens
The lineups have been confirmed. The Villa boss has made a quartet of alterations to his starting XI who were defeated by 4-1 to Arsenal last time out.
Villa: Martinez, Cash, Konsa, Lindelof, Maatsen, Kamara, Tielemans, McGinn, Buendia, Rogers, Watkins.
Bench: Bizot, Digne, Sancho, Garcia, Carroll, Bogarde, Hemmings, Malen, Jimoh-Aloba.
Forest have likewise made four adjustments 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.
Substitutes: Sels, Morato, Awoniyi, Luiz, Kalimuendo, McAtee, Zinchenko, Savona, Abbott.
Dugout Insights
Nottingham Forest manager Sean Dyche has said on his counterpart 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 very good players and they’ve shaped it into a good unit, so certainly a difficult game.
We’ve just shown lately, we’ve played against some of the top sides, or the ones that are fancied every year, and done very well against them - and a couple of teams perhaps not as highly-rated, we haven't performed as strongly against them. That’s likely the test of the group - rising to the expectation of each game rather than just the big games."
Squad News
The midfielder has will not be staying at Aston Villa, news that was confirmed 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 very good 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 decided two months ago we are not persuaded to sign him, committing the money we need."
League Context
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 twice and Sean Dyche is tasked with keeping the club in the Premier League 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 remaining.
