Villa versus Nottingham Forest: Premier League Preview
Introduction
Greetings and welcome to this Premier League encounter between Villa and Nottingham Forest. Villa will be the favourites to win in this early kick-off as they are flying this season and are currently sitting third, while Forest are 17th and just four points outside of the relegation zone.
Both clubs are entering the game following a setback as Villa were overcome 4-1 by top-of-the-table Arsenal and Forest lost 2-0 to Everton.
This promises to be a difficult task for the visitors to obtain 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 new year, new story? We will find out very soon.
The team news will drop shortly before the start at 12.30pm GMT.
Confirmed Lineups
The lineups have been confirmed. Unai Emery has made a quartet of alterations to his starting XI who were defeated by 4-1 to Arsenal in their previous match.
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 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 has done a excellent job as a manager there. Their recruitment has been good - spent a lot of money, to be fair, on some very good players and they’ve shaped it into a good unit, so definitely a difficult game.
We’ve just shown lately, we’ve faced some of the larger clubs, 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 challenge of the group - meeting the challenge of each game rather than just the major fixtures."
Transfer Update
Harvey Elliott has no future at Aston Villa, an update that was confirmed by the manager Emery in the lead-up to this match. The boss said:
"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 made the decision two months ago we are not convinced to make the move permanent, committing the money we need."
League Context
How times change. This time last year Nottingham Forest were in third place in the table, where Aston Villa are now. A lot of things have altered, including the manager on two occasions 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 above the relegation zone with 19 games of the season to go.