Aston Villa against Forest: Premier League Build-Up
Opening Thoughts
Welcome everyone to this English top-flight fixture between Villa and Nottingham Forest. Aston Villa are the favourites to win in this early kick-off as they are excelling this season and are currently occupying third place, while Forest are seventeenth and just a handful of points outside of the drop zone.
The two teams are entering the game following a defeat as Villa were overcome 4-1 by top-of-the-table Arsenal and Forest lost 2-0 to Everton.
This promises to be a challenging task for Sean Dyche’s side to secure all three points with Villa having 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 drop shortly before the start at 12.30pm GMT.
Confirmed Lineups
The starting XIs have been announced. Unai Emery has made four changes to his starting lineup who were defeated by 4-1 to Arsenal in their previous match.
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 starting squad after a 2-0 loss to Everton.
Nottingham 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
Nottingham Forest manager Sean Dyche has commented on his opponent today:
"He’s [Unai Emery] done a excellent job as a manager there. Their recruitment has been good - spent a lot of money, to be fair, on some top players and they’ve forged it into a cohesive team, so definitely a tough game.
We’ve just shown lately, we’ve faced some of the larger clubs, or the ones that are fancied every year, and performed admirably against them - and a couple of teams perhaps not as fancied, we haven’t done as well against them. That’s likely the challenge of the group - meeting the challenge of each game rather than just the major fixtures."
Squad News
The midfielder has will not be staying at Aston Villa, an update that was stated by the manager Unai Emery in the lead-up to this match. The boss said:
"We respect him all we can because he’s a top professional, very respectful. The situation 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 made the decision two months ago we are not convinced to make the move permanent, committing the money we would need to."
League Context
What a difference a year makes. This time last year Nottingham Forest were in third place in the table, where Aston 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 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.
