Aston Villa versus Forest: Premier League Preview
Opening Thoughts
Hello and welcome to this Premier League encounter between Villa and 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 Nottingham Forest are seventeenth and just four points outside of the relegation zone.
Both clubs are entering the game on 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 challenging 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 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 be released shortly before the start at 12.30pm GMT.
Team News
The lineups have been confirmed. The Villa boss has made four changes to his starting lineup who were defeated by 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 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.
Dugout Insights
Nottingham Forest manager Sean Dyche has said on his opponent today:
"He’s [Unai Emery] done a fantastic job as a manager there. Their transfer business has been impressive - invested a lot of money, to be fair, on some top players and they’ve moulded it into a good unit, so certainly a difficult game.
We’ve just shown lately, we’ve taken on some of the top sides, or the ones that are tipped every year, and done very well 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 no future at Aston Villa, news that was revealed by the manager Emery in the lead-up to this match. The boss stated:
"We respect him as much as possible because he’s a very good professional, very dedicated. The problem we have with Harvey is this year he is a loan player and if he is playing matches, we must buy him. We made the decision two months ago we are not persuaded to make the move permanent, spending the money we would need to."
Form Guide
How times change. 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 on two occasions and Sean Dyche is charged with keeping the club in the top-flight this season. Since being appointed on 21 October, Dyche has secured 10 Premier League points and the side are just outside the bottom three with 19 games of the season remaining.
