Aston Villa versus Nottingham Forest: Top-Flight Match Preview
Preamble
Greetings and welcome to this English top-flight fixture between Villa and Forest. Villa will be the favourites to win in this lunchtime start as they are flying this season and are currently sitting third, while Forest are 17th and just a handful of points outside of the drop zone.
Each side are entering the game following a loss as Villa were beaten 4-1 by top-of-the-table Arsenal and Forest succumbed 2-0 to Everton.
This shapes up as a tough task for Forest to come away with all three points with Villa possessing one of the best home forms in Europe at the moment and they also recorded a team record of 36 wins across all competitions this season. But perhaps it’s new year, new story? The answer will be revealed very soon.
The confirmed XIs will drop shortly before the start at 12.30pm GMT.
Team News
The starting XIs have been announced. The Villa boss has made four changes to his first eleven who were defeated by 4-1 to Arsenal in their previous match.
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 adjustments to their starting squad after a 2-0 defeat 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.
Manager Comments
Nottingham Forest manager Sean Dyche has commented on his counterpart today:
"He has done a excellent job as a manager there. Their signings has been good - spent a lot of money, to be fair, on some top players and they’ve shaped it into a strong side, so certainly a difficult game.
We’ve just demonstrated lately, we’ve played against some of the bigger teams, or the ones that are tipped every year, and done very well 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 challenge of each game rather than just the big games."
Transfer Update
The midfielder has no future at Aston Villa, news that was revealed by the manager Unai Emery in the build-up to this match. The boss stated:
"I am respecting him all we can because he’s a excellent professional, very respectful. The issue we have with Harvey is this year he is a loan player and if he is playing matches, we must buy him. We decided two months ago we are not convinced to make the move permanent, spending the money we would need to."
League Context
How times change. This time last year Nottingham Forest were third in the table, where Aston Villa are now. A lot of things have shifted, 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 secured 10 Premier League points and the side are just outside the bottom three with 19 games of the season to go.
