Villa against Forest: Top-Flight Match Preview
Introduction
Hello and welcome to this English top-flight clash between Villa and Forest. Villa will be the favourites to win in this early kick-off as they are soaring this season and are currently in third, while Nottingham Forest are seventeenth and just four points outside of the relegation zone.
Each side are coming into the game on the back of a defeat as Villa were defeated 4-1 by league-leading Arsenal and Forest fell 2-0 to Everton.
It will be 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 club record of 36 wins across all competitions this season. But maybe it’s new year, new story? The answer will be revealed very soon.
The team news will be announced shortly before kick-off at 12.30pm GMT.
Team News
The lineups have been confirmed. Unai Emery has made four changes to his starting XI who lost 4-1 to Arsenal last time around.
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 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.
Bench: Sels, Morato, Awoniyi, Luiz, Kalimuendo, McAtee, Zinchenko, Savona, Abbott.
Dugout Insights
Forest boss Sean Dyche has commented on his counterpart today:
"Emery has delivered a fantastic job as a manager there. Their transfer business has been good - spent a lot of money, to be fair, on some excellent players and they’ve shaped it into a good unit, so certainly a difficult game.
We’ve just shown lately, we’ve faced some of the larger clubs, or the ones that are favoured every year, and performed admirably against them - and a couple of teams maybe not as fancied, we haven’t done as well against them. That’s likely the challenge of the group - rising to the expectation of each game rather than just the big games."
Transfer Update
The midfielder has will not be staying 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 dedicated. The situation we have with Harvey is this year he is on loan and if he is featuring regularly, we are obligated to buy him. We decided two months ago we are not convinced to sign him, spending the money we would need to."
Season Snapshot
How times change. 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 the current boss is tasked with keeping the club in the Premier League this season. Since being named manager on 21 October, Dyche has accumulated 10 Premier League points and the side are just outside the relegation zone with 19 games of the season remaining.
