Villa against Forest: Top-Flight Preview
Preamble
Welcome everyone to this English top-flight fixture 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 occupying third place, while Nottingham Forest are 17th and just four points outside of the drop zone.
The two teams are entering the game on the back of a loss as Villa were overcome 4-1 by league-leading Arsenal and Forest lost 2-0 to Everton.
It will be a difficult 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 a new year and a new narrative? All will become clear very soon.
The starting lineups will drop shortly before kick-off at 12.30pm GMT.
Confirmed Lineups
The team news is in. Unai Emery has made four changes to his starting lineup who were defeated by 4-1 to Arsenal last time around.
Aston Villa: Martinez, Cash, Konsa, Lindelof, Maatsen, Kamara, Tielemans, McGinn, Buendia, Rogers, Watkins.
Bench: Bizot, Digne, Sancho, Garcia, Carroll, Bogarde, Hemmings, Malen, Jimoh-Aloba.
Nottingham Forest have likewise 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.
Dugout Insights
Forest boss Sean Dyche has commented on his opponent today:
"He has done a excellent job as a manager there. Their recruitment has been strong - spent a lot of money, to be fair, on some top players and they’ve forged it into a good unit, so definitely a challenging game.
We’ve just demonstrated lately, we’ve taken on some of the bigger teams, or the ones that are fancied every year, and performed admirably against them - and a couple of teams maybe not as fancied, we haven't performed as strongly against them. That’s probably the challenge of the group - rising to the expectation of each game rather than just the major fixtures."
Transfer Update
The midfielder has will not be staying at Aston Villa, an update that was revealed by the manager Unai Emery in the lead-up to this match. The boss commented:
"I am respecting 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 playing matches, we are obligated to buy him. We made the decision two months ago we are not convinced to sign him, spending the money we would need to."
League Context
What a difference a year makes. This time last year Forest were third in the table, where Villa are now. A lot of things have altered, including the manager twice 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 secured 10 Premier League points and the side are just above the bottom three with 19 games of the season to go.
