Aston Villa v Forest: Top-Flight Preview
Preamble
Welcome everyone to this Premier League 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 four points outside of the drop zone.
The two teams are coming into the game on the back of a defeat as Villa were defeated 4-1 by top-of-the-table Arsenal and Forest fell 2-0 to Everton.
This shapes up as a difficult task for Forest to obtain all three points with Villa having 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 it’s a new year and a new narrative? We will find out very soon.
The confirmed XIs will be announced shortly before the start at 12.30pm GMT.
Starting Elevens
The team news is in. The Villa boss has made a quartet of alterations to his starting XI who lost 4-1 to Arsenal in their previous match.
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 also 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.
Dugout Insights
Forest boss Sean Dyche has remarked on his opponent today:
"He has done a great job as a manager there. Their recruitment has been good - invested a lot of money, to be fair, on some very good players and they’ve forged it into a cohesive team, so definitely a tough game.
We’ve just shown lately, we’ve faced some of the top sides, or the ones that are tipped every year, and held our own against them - and a couple of teams maybe not as fancied, we struggled more against them. That’s likely the challenge of the group - meeting the expectation of each game rather than just the major fixtures."
Squad News
Harvey Elliott has no future at Aston Villa, an update that was revealed by the manager Unai Emery in the build-up to this match. The boss stated:
"We respect him as much as possible because he’s a top professional, very respectful. The problem we have with Harvey is this year he is a loan player and if he is featuring regularly, we must buy him. We decided two months ago we are not persuaded to sign him, spending the money we need."
Form Guide
What a difference a year makes. This time last year Nottingham Forest were third in the table, where Aston Villa are now. A lot of things have altered, including the manager on two occasions 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.
