Villa versus Nottingham Forest: Premier League Preview
Introduction
Greetings and welcome to this English top-flight encounter between Aston Villa and Nottingham Forest. The home side are the favourites to win in this early kick-off as they are soaring this season and are currently sitting third, while Forest are 17th and just four points outside of the drop zone.
Both clubs are entering the game on the back of a setback as Villa were overcome 4-1 by top-of-the-table Arsenal and Forest fell 2-0 to Everton.
This shapes up as a tough task for Forest to secure all three points with Villa boasting one of the best home forms in Europe at the moment and they also set a team record of 36 wins across all competitions this season. But maybe it’s new year, new story? We will find out very soon.
The confirmed XIs will be announced shortly before kick-off at 12.30pm GMT.
Starting Elevens
The lineups have been confirmed. The Villa boss has made four changes to his starting XI who were defeated by 4-1 to Arsenal in their previous match.
Villa: Martinez, Cash, Konsa, Lindelof, Maatsen, Kamara, Tielemans, McGinn, Buendia, Rogers, Watkins.
Substitutes: 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 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.
Pre-Match Quotes
Forest boss Sean Dyche has said on his counterpart today:
"He’s [Unai Emery] done a excellent job as a manager there. Their recruitment has been impressive - spent a lot of money, to be fair, on some very good players and they’ve forged it into a cohesive team, so certainly a tough game.
We’ve just shown lately, we’ve taken on some of the bigger teams, or the ones that are favoured every year, and done very well against them - and a couple of teams maybe not as highly-rated, 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."
Player Situation
Harvey Elliott has will not be staying at Aston Villa, news that was confirmed 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 excellent professional, very dedicated. The problem we have with Harvey is this year he is on loan and if he is playing matches, we must buy him. We decided two months ago we are not convinced to sign him, spending the money we would need to."
League Context
How times change. This time last year Nottingham Forest were in third place in the table, where Aston Villa are now. A lot of things have shifted, including the manager on two occasions and the current boss is tasked 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 relegation zone with 19 games of the season remaining.
