Aston Villa against Forest: Premier League Match Preview
Preamble
Hello and welcome to this Premier League fixture between 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 in third, while Forest are in 17th position and just four points outside of the drop zone.
Each side are entering the game on the back of a loss as Villa were defeated 4-1 by league-leading Arsenal and Forest fell 2-0 to Everton.
This shapes up as a challenging task for the visitors to secure all three points with Villa possessing one of the best home records in Europe at the moment and they also set a team record of 36 wins across all competitions this season. But perhaps it’s a new year and a new narrative? The answer will be revealed very soon.
The confirmed XIs will be announced shortly before kick-off at 12.30pm GMT.
Starting Elevens
The team news is in. Unai Emery 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.
Substitutes: Sels, Morato, Awoniyi, Luiz, Kalimuendo, McAtee, Zinchenko, Savona, Abbott.
Manager Comments
Forest boss Sean Dyche has commented on his opponent today:
"He has done a excellent job as a manager there. Their signings has been impressive - spent a lot of money, to be fair, on some very good players and they’ve moulded it into a good unit, so certainly a difficult game.
We’ve just demonstrated lately, we’ve faced some of the bigger teams, or the ones that are tipped every year, and performed admirably against them - and a couple of teams perhaps not as fancied, we haven’t done as well 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 will not be staying at Aston Villa, an update that was confirmed by the manager Unai Emery in the lead-up to this match. The boss stated:
"We respect him all we can because he’s a top professional, very respectful. The situation we have with Harvey is this year he is a loan player and if he is featuring regularly, we are obligated to buy him. We decided two months ago we are not persuaded to sign him, spending the money we need."
Form Guide
How times change. This time last year 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 Sean Dyche is tasked with keeping the club in the top-flight this season. Since being appointed on 21 October, Dyche has secured 10 Premier League points and the side are just outside the bottom three with 19 games of the season to go.
