Villa versus Nottingham Forest: Premier League Match Preview
Introduction
Hello and welcome to this English top-flight clash between Villa and Nottingham Forest. Villa will be the expected winners to win in this early kick-off as they are flying this season and are currently in third, while Nottingham Forest are 17th and just a handful of points outside of the drop zone.
Each side are coming into the game off of the back of a setback as Villa were beaten 4-1 by league-leading Arsenal and Forest succumbed 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 forms in Europe at the moment and they also set a club record of 36 wins across all competitions this season. But maybe itâs new year, new story? We will find out very soon.
The starting lineups will be released shortly before kick-off at 12.30pm GMT.
Confirmed Lineups
The starting XIs have been announced. The Villa boss has made a quartet of alterations to his first eleven who lost 4-1 to Arsenal last time around.
Aston 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.
Nottâm 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
Nottingham Forest manager Sean Dyche has remarked on his counterpart today:
"He has done a fantastic job as a manager there. Their recruitment has been impressive - invested a lot of money, to be fair, on some very good players and theyâve shaped it into a cohesive team, so definitely a challenging game.
Weâve just shown lately, weâve taken on some of the bigger teams, or the ones that are favoured every year, and performed admirably against them - and a couple of teams maybe not as highly-rated, we struggled more against them. Thatâs likely the test of the group - meeting the expectation of each game rather than just the big games."
Squad News
Harvey Elliott has no future at Aston Villa, news that was stated by the manager Emery in the build-up to this match. The boss said:
"I am respecting him as much as possible because heâs a excellent professional, very dedicated. The problem we have with Harvey is this year he is on loan and if he is featuring regularly, we must buy him. We made the decision 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 in third place 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 appointed on 21 October, Dyche has accumulated 10 Premier League points and the side are just above the bottom three with 19 games of the season remaining.
