Aston Villa v Nottingham Forest: Premier League Preview
Preamble
Greetings and welcome to this English top-flight clash between Aston Villa and Nottingham Forest. The home side are the strong favourites to win in this lunchtime start as they are soaring this season and are currently occupying third place, while Forest are in 17th position and just a handful of points outside of the drop zone.
The two teams are coming into the game on the back of a defeat as Villa were defeated 4-1 by top-of-the-table Arsenal and Forest succumbed 2-0 to Everton.
It will be a tough task for Sean Dyche’s side to come away with all three points with Villa having one of the best home records in Europe at the moment and they also recorded a club record of 36 wins across all competitions this season. But maybe it’s a new year and a new narrative? The answer will be revealed very soon.
The starting lineups will drop shortly before the start at 12.30pm GMT.
Team News
The team news is in. Unai Emery has made four changes to his starting lineup who lost 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 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.
Manager Comments
Nottingham Forest manager Sean Dyche has remarked on his counterpart today:
"He’s [Unai Emery] done a excellent job as a manager there. Their transfer business has been good - invested a lot of money, to be fair, on some top players and they’ve shaped it into a good unit, so certainly a difficult game.
We’ve just shown lately, we’ve taken on some of the larger clubs, or the ones that are fancied every year, and held our own against them - and a couple of teams perhaps not as highly-rated, we struggled more 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 no future at Aston Villa, news that was revealed by the manager Emery in the build-up to this match. The boss said:
"I am respecting him as much as possible because he’s a excellent professional, very dedicated. The issue we have with Harvey is this year he is on loan and if he is featuring regularly, we must buy him. We made the decision two months ago we are not convinced to make the move permanent, spending the money we need."
Season Snapshot
How times change. 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 on two occasions 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.
