Aston Villa versus Nottingham Forest: Top-Flight Preview
Preamble
Welcome everyone to this English top-flight fixture between Villa and Forest. Villa will be the expected winners to win in this early kick-off as they are excelling this season and are currently occupying third place, while Forest are seventeenth and just a handful of points outside of the drop zone.
The two teams are coming into the game following a defeat as Villa were overcome 4-1 by league-leading Arsenal and Forest succumbed 2-0 to Everton.
It will be a challenging task for Forest to come away with all three points with Villa having one of the best home records in Europe at the moment and they also recorded a club 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.
Starting Elevens
The starting XIs have been announced. The Villa boss has made four changes to his starting lineup who lost 4-1 to Arsenal last time out.
Villa: Martinez, Cash, Konsa, Lindelof, Maatsen, Kamara, Tielemans, McGinn, Buendia, Rogers, Watkins.
Substitutes: Bizot, Digne, Sancho, Garcia, Carroll, Bogarde, Hemmings, Malen, Jimoh-Aloba.
Forest have also made four changes to their matchday squad after a 2-0 defeat 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.
Manager Comments
Forest boss Sean Dyche has commented on his opponent today:
"He’s [Unai Emery] done a great job as a manager there. Their signings has been strong - invested a lot of money, to be fair, on some top players and they’ve moulded it into a cohesive team, so certainly a challenging game.
We’ve just demonstrated lately, we’ve played against some of the larger clubs, or the ones that are favoured every year, and held our own against them - and a couple of teams perhaps 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
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 stated:
"I am respecting him all we can because he’s a top professional, very respectful. The situation we have with Harvey is this year he is a loan player and if he is featuring regularly, we are obligated to buy him. We decided two months ago we are not persuaded to sign him, committing the money we would need to."
Season Snapshot
What a difference a year makes. This time last year Forest were third in the table, where Aston Villa are now. A lot of things have changed, including the manager twice and the current boss is charged with keeping the club in the top-flight this season. Since being named manager on 21 October, Dyche has won 10 Premier League points and the side are just outside the bottom three with 19 games of the season to go.
