Aston Villa v Forest: Top-Flight Match Preview
Opening Thoughts
Hello and welcome to this English top-flight encounter between Aston Villa and Forest. Aston Villa are the strong favourites to win in this early kick-off as they are soaring this season and are currently in third, while Forest are in 17th position and just a handful of points outside of the drop zone.
Both clubs are entering the game following a loss as Villa were beaten 4-1 by top-of-the-table Arsenal and Forest fell 2-0 to Everton.
This promises to be a tough task for Forest to come away with all three points with Villa having one of the best home forms in Europe at the moment and they also set 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 team news will be announced shortly before the start at 12.30pm GMT.
Team News
The lineups have been confirmed. Unai Emery 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 likewise made four changes to their starting 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.
Dugout Insights
Nottingham Forest manager Sean Dyche has said on his counterpart today:
"Emery has delivered a great job as a manager there. Their signings has been impressive - invested a lot of money, to be fair, on some very good players and they’ve moulded it into a good unit, so certainly a tough game.
We’ve just shown lately, we’ve taken on some of the larger clubs, or the ones that are tipped every year, and performed admirably against them - and a couple of teams maybe not as fancied, we haven't performed as strongly against them. That’s probably the test of the group - meeting the challenge of each game rather than just the big games."
Player Situation
The midfielder has will not be staying at Aston Villa, an update that was revealed by the manager Emery in the build-up to this match. The boss said:
"I am respecting him all we can because he’s a excellent 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 decided two months ago we are not persuaded to sign him, spending the money we would need to."
Season Snapshot
What a difference a year makes. 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 twice and Sean Dyche is tasked with keeping the club in the Premier League this season. Since being named manager 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.
