Villa versus Forest: Top-Flight Preview
Opening Thoughts
Hello and welcome to this English top-flight clash between Villa and Forest. Villa will be the strong favourites to win in this lunchtime start as they are soaring this season and are currently in third, while Nottingham Forest are in 17th position and just a handful of points outside of the drop zone.
Each side are coming into the game following a defeat as Villa were beaten 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 obtain all three points with Villa possessing one of the best home forms 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? All will become clear very soon.
The starting lineups will be announced shortly before kick-off at 12.30pm GMT.
Starting Elevens
The starting XIs have been announced. Unai Emery has made a quartet of alterations to his first eleven who lost 4-1 to Arsenal last time around.
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 likewise made four changes 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.
Bench: Sels, Morato, Awoniyi, Luiz, Kalimuendo, McAtee, Zinchenko, Savona, Abbott.
Pre-Match Quotes
Nottingham Forest manager Sean Dyche has said on his counterpart today:
"He has done a fantastic job as a manager there. Their signings has been strong - spent a lot of money, to be fair, on some very good players and they’ve moulded it into a strong side, so certainly a challenging game.
We’ve just demonstrated lately, we’ve faced some of the top sides, or the ones that are tipped every year, and performed admirably against them - and a couple of teams maybe not as fancied, we haven't performed as strongly against them. That’s probably the challenge of the group - meeting the expectation of each game rather than just the big games."
Transfer Update
Harvey Elliott 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 stated:
"I am respecting him as much as possible because he’s a very good professional, very respectful. The issue 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 persuaded to make the move permanent, spending the money we need."
League Context
How times change. 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 named manager on 21 October, Dyche has accumulated 10 Premier League points and the side are just outside the bottom three with 19 games of the season remaining.
