Aston Villa v Forest: Top-Flight Match Preview
Opening Thoughts
Welcome everyone to this English top-flight fixture between Villa and 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 Forest are seventeenth and just four points outside of the drop zone.
Each side 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.
This shapes up as a difficult task for the visitors to come away with all three points with Villa boasting one of the best home forms in Europe at the moment and they also achieved a team 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 be announced shortly before the start at 12.30pm GMT.
Starting Elevens
The team news is in. The Villa boss has made a quartet of alterations to his first eleven who lost 4-1 to Arsenal in their previous match.
Aston 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 also made four adjustments 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.
Pre-Match Quotes
Nottingham Forest manager Sean Dyche has remarked on his counterpart today:
"He has done a fantastic job as a manager there. Their recruitment has been strong - spent a lot of money, to be fair, on some very good players and they’ve forged it into a strong side, so certainly a challenging game.
We’ve just shown lately, we’ve faced some of the bigger teams, or the ones that are favoured every year, and done very well against them - and a couple of teams perhaps not as highly-rated, we haven’t done as well against them. That’s probably the test of the group - meeting the challenge of each game rather than just the major fixtures."
Squad News
Harvey Elliott has no future at Aston Villa, news that was confirmed by the manager Emery in the lead-up to this match. The boss commented:
"We respect him as much as possible because he’s a very good professional, very respectful. The situation we have with Harvey is this year he is on loan 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 need."
Form Guide
The tables have turned. This time last year Nottingham Forest were third in the table, where Villa are now. A lot of things have changed, including the manager twice and Sean Dyche is tasked with keeping the club in the top-flight this season. Since being appointed on 21 October, Dyche has accumulated 10 Premier League points and the side are just outside the bottom three with 19 games of the season to go.
