Aston Villa against Forest: Top-Flight Match Preview
Preamble
Greetings and welcome to this English top-flight clash between Villa and 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.
The two teams are entering the game following a setback as Villa were defeated 4-1 by top-of-the-table Arsenal and Forest succumbed 2-0 to Everton.
This shapes up as a tough task for Sean Dyche’s side to come away with all three points with Villa having one of the best home forms in Europe at the moment and they also achieved a club record of 36 wins across all competitions this season. But maybe it’s a new year and a new narrative? All will become clear very soon.
The confirmed XIs will be announced shortly before kick-off at 12.30pm GMT.
Team News
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.
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 likewise made four adjustments to their matchday squad after a 2-0 defeat 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.
Dugout Insights
Forest boss Sean Dyche has remarked on his counterpart today:
"Emery has delivered a excellent job as a manager there. Their signings has been impressive - invested a lot of money, to be fair, on some very good players and they’ve moulded it into a good unit, so definitely a challenging 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 highly-rated, we haven't performed as strongly against them. That’s likely the challenge of the group - rising to the expectation of each game rather than just the major fixtures."
Squad News
The midfielder has will not be staying at Aston Villa, news that was revealed by the manager Emery in the lead-up to this match. The boss stated:
"We respect him all we can because he’s a very good 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 made the decision two months ago we are not persuaded to make the move permanent, committing the money we would need to."
Season Snapshot
The tables have turned. This time last year Forest were in third place in the table, where Villa are now. A lot of things have shifted, 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 above the bottom three with 19 games of the season to go.
