Villa v Nottingham Forest: Top-Flight Preview
Introduction
Hello and welcome to this English top-flight encounter between Aston Villa and Nottingham Forest. Aston Villa are the expected winners to win in this early kick-off as they are flying this season and are currently in third, while Nottingham Forest are in 17th position and just four points outside of the drop zone.
Each side are coming into the game following a loss as Villa were defeated 4-1 by top-of-the-table Arsenal and Forest succumbed 2-0 to Everton.
This shapes up as a challenging task for Sean Dyche’s side to obtain all three points with Villa boasting one of the best home forms in Europe at the moment and they also set a team record of 36 wins across all competitions this season. But maybe it’s new year, new story? All will become clear very soon.
The starting lineups will be announced 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 XI who were defeated by 4-1 to Arsenal in their previous match.
Villa: Martinez, Cash, Konsa, Lindelof, Maatsen, Kamara, Tielemans, McGinn, Buendia, Rogers, Watkins.
Substitutes: 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.
Nottingham 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 top players and they’ve forged it into a good unit, so certainly a challenging game.
We’ve just shown lately, we’ve faced some of the larger clubs, or the ones that are tipped every year, and done very well against them - and a couple of teams perhaps not as fancied, we struggled more against them. That’s likely the challenge of the group - rising to the expectation 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 confirmed by the manager Unai Emery in the lead-up to this match. The boss said:
"I am respecting him as much as possible because he’s a top professional, very dedicated. The situation we have with Harvey is this year he is a loan player and if he is featuring regularly, we must buy him. We decided two months ago we are not convinced to sign him, committing the money we would need to."
League Context
The tables have turned. This time last year Nottingham 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 appointed on 21 October, Dyche has accumulated 10 Premier League points and the side are just outside the relegation zone with 19 games of the season to go.
