Aston Villa v Nottingham Forest: Top-Flight Build-Up
Preamble
Welcome everyone to this Premier League encounter between Aston Villa and Nottingham Forest. The home side are the expected winners to win in this lunchtime start as they are flying this season and are currently sitting third, while Nottingham Forest are in 17th position and just four points outside of the drop zone.
Both clubs are coming into the game following a loss as Villa were overcome 4-1 by top-of-the-table Arsenal and Forest lost 2-0 to Everton.
It will be a tough task for the visitors to come away with all three points with Villa possessing one of the best home records in Europe at the moment and they also recorded a team record of 36 wins across all competitions this season. But perhaps it’s new year, new story? We will find out very soon.
The starting lineups will be announced shortly before kick-off at 12.30pm GMT.
Team News
The team news is in. The Villa boss has made four changes to his first eleven who lost 4-1 to Arsenal last time out.
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 adjustments to their starting 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.
Manager Comments
Forest boss Sean Dyche has commented on his opponent today:
"Emery has delivered a great job as a manager there. Their transfer business has been impressive - spent a lot of money, to be fair, on some very good players and they’ve forged it into a good unit, so definitely a challenging game.
We’ve just demonstrated lately, we’ve taken on some of the top sides, 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 haven’t done as well against them. That’s likely the test of the group - meeting the expectation of each game rather than just the major fixtures."
Transfer Update
Harvey Elliott has will not be staying at Aston Villa, news that was stated by the manager Emery in the lead-up to this match. The boss said:
"We respect him all we can because he’s a top professional, very dedicated. 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 made the decision two months ago we are not persuaded to sign him, spending the money we would need to."
League Context
What a difference a year makes. This time last year Nottingham 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 named manager 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 to go.
