Aston Villa versus Nottingham Forest: Top-Flight Build-Up
Introduction
Hello and welcome to this English top-flight clash between Villa and Nottingham Forest. The home side are the favourites to win in this early kick-off as they are soaring this season and are currently occupying third place, while Forest are 17th and just four points outside of the relegation zone.
Each side are coming into the game following a loss as Villa were overcome 4-1 by league-leading Arsenal and Forest succumbed 2-0 to Everton.
This shapes up as a tough task for Sean Dyche’s side to obtain all three points with Villa having 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? All will become clear very soon.
The starting lineups will drop shortly before the start at 12.30pm GMT.
Confirmed Lineups
The team news is in. Unai Emery has made a quartet of alterations to his first eleven who were defeated by 4-1 to Arsenal last time out.
Aston 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 adjustments to their matchday 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.
Manager Comments
Forest boss Sean Dyche has said on his opponent today:
"He’s [Unai Emery] done a excellent 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 moulded it into a cohesive team, so certainly a challenging game.
We’ve just shown lately, we’ve played against 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 highly-rated, we struggled more against them. That’s probably the challenge of the group - meeting the expectation of each game rather than just the big games."
Squad News
The midfielder has will not be staying at Aston Villa, an update that was confirmed by the manager Unai Emery in the build-up to this match. The boss commented:
"We respect him as much as possible because he’s a very good professional, very respectful. The problem 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 persuaded to make the move permanent, committing the money we need."
Season Snapshot
The tables have turned. This time last year Forest were in third place in the table, where Villa are now. A lot of things have shifted, including the manager twice and Sean Dyche is tasked with keeping the club in the top-flight this season. Since being named manager on 21 October, Dyche has secured 10 Premier League points and the side are just above the relegation zone with 19 games of the season remaining.
