Villa v Nottingham Forest: Top-Flight Preview
Preamble
Welcome everyone to this Premier League clash between Aston Villa and Nottingham Forest. Aston Villa are the favourites to win in this lunchtime start as they are soaring this season and are currently sitting third, while Nottingham Forest are in 17th position and just four points outside of the relegation zone.
Each side are entering the game on the back of a defeat as Villa were beaten 4-1 by league-leading Arsenal and Forest fell 2-0 to Everton.
This shapes up as a difficult task for the visitors to secure all three points with Villa having one of the best home forms in Europe at the moment and they also set a club record of 36 wins across all competitions this season. But maybe it’s new year, new story? We will find out very soon.
The team news will drop shortly before kick-off at 12.30pm GMT.
Starting Elevens
The starting XIs have been announced. The Villa boss has made a quartet of alterations to his first eleven 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.
Bench: Bizot, Digne, Sancho, Garcia, Carroll, Bogarde, Hemmings, Malen, Jimoh-Aloba.
Forest have likewise made four changes to their matchday squad after a 2-0 defeat 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
Forest boss Sean Dyche has remarked on his opponent today:
"He has done a excellent job as a manager there. Their transfer business has been good - invested a lot of money, to be fair, on some very good players and they’ve shaped it into a good unit, so definitely a challenging game.
We’ve just demonstrated 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 likely the test 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, news that was revealed 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 excellent professional, very dedicated. 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 convinced to sign him, committing the money we would need to."
Form Guide
The tables have turned. This time last year Forest were third in the table, where Villa are now. A lot of things have changed, including the manager on two occasions 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 remaining.
