Villa versus Forest: Premier League Match Preview
Introduction
Greetings and welcome to this English top-flight fixture between Villa and Nottingham Forest. Villa will be the strong favourites to win in this early kick-off as they are flying this season and are currently sitting third, while Forest are in 17th position and just a handful of points outside of the relegation zone.
Both clubs are coming into the game off of the back of a loss as Villa were overcome 4-1 by league-leading Arsenal and Forest lost 2-0 to Everton.
This promises to be a tough task for Sean Dyche’s side to obtain all three points with Villa possessing one of the best home forms in Europe at the moment and they also recorded a team record of 36 wins across all competitions this season. But perhaps it’s a new year and a new narrative? We will find out very soon.
The team news will drop shortly before the start at 12.30pm GMT.
Starting Elevens
The lineups have been confirmed. Unai Emery has made a quartet of alterations to his starting XI who lost 4-1 to Arsenal last time around.
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 also made four changes to their matchday squad after a 2-0 loss to Everton.
Nott’m 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
Forest boss Sean Dyche has said on his counterpart today:
"He has done a great job as a manager there. Their transfer business has been strong - invested a lot of money, to be fair, on some top players and they’ve shaped it into a cohesive team, so certainly a difficult game.
We’ve just shown lately, we’ve taken on some of the top sides, or the ones that are fancied every year, and held our own against them - and a couple of teams perhaps not as fancied, we struggled more against them. That’s probably the challenge of the group - meeting the expectation of each game rather than just the major fixtures."
Player Situation
The midfielder has will not be staying at Aston Villa, news that was confirmed by the manager Emery in the build-up to this match. The boss stated:
"I am respecting him all we can because he’s a excellent 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 decided two months ago we are not convinced to sign him, committing the money we would need to."
Season Snapshot
The tables have turned. This time last year Nottingham Forest were third in the table, where Villa are now. A lot of things have shifted, including the manager twice and Sean Dyche 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 to go.
