Villa versus Nottingham Forest: Top-Flight Match Preview
Introduction
Welcome everyone to this Premier League clash between Villa and Nottingham Forest. The home side are the favourites to win in this lunchtime start as they are excelling this season and are currently sitting third, while Forest are 17th and just four points outside of the relegation zone.
Each side are coming into the game off of the back of a loss as Villa were defeated 4-1 by top-of-the-table Arsenal and Forest fell 2-0 to Everton.
It will be a tough task for the visitors to obtain 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 maybe it’s new year, new story? All will become clear very soon.
The confirmed XIs will drop shortly before kick-off at 12.30pm GMT.
Confirmed Lineups
The lineups have been confirmed. 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.
Forest have also made four adjustments 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.
Substitutes: Sels, Morato, Awoniyi, Luiz, Kalimuendo, McAtee, Zinchenko, Savona, Abbott.
Manager Comments
Forest boss Sean Dyche has remarked on his counterpart today:
"He’s [Unai Emery] done a excellent job as a manager there. Their transfer business has been strong - invested a lot of money, to be fair, on some excellent players and they’ve forged it into a good unit, so definitely a challenging game.
We’ve just demonstrated lately, we’ve played against some of the bigger teams, or the ones that are fancied every year, and held our own against them - and a couple of teams perhaps not as highly-rated, we haven't performed as strongly against them. That’s likely the challenge of the group - rising to the challenge of each game rather than just the big games."
Transfer Update
The midfielder 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 commented:
"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 on loan and if he is featuring regularly, we must buy him. We decided two months ago we are not convinced to make the move permanent, 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 changed, including the manager on two occasions and the current boss is charged 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 above the bottom three with 19 games of the season to go.
