Villa against Nottingham Forest: Top-Flight Match Preview
Opening Thoughts
Hello and welcome to this English top-flight fixture between Villa and Forest. Villa will be the favourites to win in this early kick-off 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.
The two teams are entering the game off of the back of a setback as Villa were beaten 4-1 by league-leading Arsenal and Forest fell 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 boasting 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? We will find out very soon.
The starting lineups will be released shortly before the start at 12.30pm GMT.
Starting Elevens
The team news is in. The Villa boss has made four changes to his starting lineup who were defeated by 4-1 to Arsenal in their previous match.
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.
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
Nottingham Forest manager Sean Dyche has commented on his counterpart today:
"He has done a great job as a manager there. Their recruitment has been good - invested a lot of money, to be fair, on some very good players and they’ve moulded it into a cohesive team, so certainly a difficult game.
We’ve just shown lately, we’ve played against some of the larger clubs, or the ones that are favoured 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 probably the test of the group - meeting the expectation of each game rather than just the big games."
Squad News
The midfielder has will not be staying at Aston Villa, an update that was confirmed by the manager Unai Emery in the build-up to this match. The boss said:
"We respect him all we can because he’s a excellent professional, very respectful. The situation 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, committing the money we need."
Form Guide
The tables have turned. This time last year Nottingham Forest were third in the table, where Villa are now. A lot of things have shifted, including the manager on two occasions and the current boss is charged 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 bottom three with 19 games of the season remaining.
