Villa against Forest: Premier League Match Preview
Preamble
Greetings and welcome to this Premier League fixture between Aston Villa and Nottingham Forest. Aston Villa are the strong favourites to win in this early kick-off as they are soaring this season and are currently sitting third, while Forest are seventeenth and just a handful of points outside of the relegation zone.
The two teams are entering the game following a loss as Villa were beaten 4-1 by league-leading Arsenal and Forest fell 2-0 to Everton.
This promises to be a tough task for Forest to come away with all three points with Villa possessing one of the best home records in Europe at the moment and they also achieved a club 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 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 first eleven who were defeated by 4-1 to Arsenal last time out.
Aston 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 changes to their starting 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.
Pre-Match Quotes
Nottingham Forest manager Sean Dyche has commented on his opponent today:
"He’s [Unai Emery] done a great job as a manager there. Their transfer business has been impressive - spent a lot of money, to be fair, on some excellent players and they’ve moulded it into a cohesive team, so definitely a tough game.
We’ve just demonstrated 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 highly-rated, we haven’t done as well against them. That’s probably the test of the group - meeting the challenge of each game rather than just the big games."
Squad News
Harvey Elliott has will not be staying at Aston Villa, news that was stated by the manager Emery in the lead-up to this match. The boss stated:
"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 must buy him. We decided two months ago we are not persuaded to sign him, committing the money we need."
Season Snapshot
How times change. This time last year Nottingham Forest were in third place in the table, where 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 top-flight 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.
