Villa against Nottingham Forest: Premier League Match Preview
Introduction
Hello and welcome to this English top-flight clash between Aston Villa and Nottingham Forest. Villa will be the expected winners to win in this lunchtime start as they are flying this season and are currently in third, while Nottingham Forest are seventeenth and just four points outside of the relegation zone.
Each side are entering the game off of the back of a setback as Villa were overcome 4-1 by top-of-the-table Arsenal and Forest fell 2-0 to Everton.
This shapes up as a tough task for Forest to obtain all three points with Villa boasting one of the best home records in Europe at the moment and they also achieved a team record of 36 wins across all competitions this season. But perhaps it’s a new year and a new narrative? The answer will be revealed very soon.
The confirmed XIs will be released shortly before kick-off at 12.30pm GMT.
Confirmed Lineups
The lineups have been confirmed. The Villa boss has made a quartet of alterations to his starting lineup who were defeated by 4-1 to Arsenal last time out.
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 matchday squad after a 2-0 loss to Everton.
Nott’m 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
Forest boss Sean Dyche has said on his counterpart today:
"Emery has delivered a excellent job as a manager there. Their recruitment has been impressive - invested 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 taken on some of the larger clubs, or the ones that are fancied every year, and performed admirably against them - and a couple of teams maybe not as highly-rated, 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."
Squad News
Harvey Elliott has no future at Aston Villa, an update that was revealed by the manager Unai Emery in the lead-up to this match. The boss stated:
"We respect him all we can because he’s a excellent professional, very dedicated. The problem we have with Harvey is this year he is on loan and if he is playing matches, we are obligated to 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
The tables have turned. This time last year Forest were third in the table, where Aston 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 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 to go.
