Aston Villa versus Forest: Premier League Build-Up
Opening Thoughts
Welcome everyone to this Premier League clash between Villa and Forest. Aston Villa are the strong favourites to win in this lunchtime start as they are excelling this season and are currently occupying third place, while Nottingham Forest are in 17th position and just four points outside of the relegation zone.
Both clubs are coming into the game following a defeat as Villa were defeated 4-1 by league-leading Arsenal and Forest succumbed 2-0 to Everton.
This promises to be a tough task for the visitors to secure all three points with Villa boasting one of the best home records in Europe at the moment and they also set a club record of 36 wins across all competitions this season. But perhaps it’s a new year and a new narrative? All will become clear very soon.
The team news will drop shortly before the start at 12.30pm GMT.
Starting Elevens
The team news is in. The Villa boss has made a quartet of alterations to his starting XI 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.
Nottingham Forest have also 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.
Manager Comments
Nottingham Forest manager Sean Dyche has remarked on his opponent today:
"Emery has delivered a fantastic job as a manager there. Their recruitment has been good - invested a lot of money, to be fair, on some excellent players and they’ve moulded it into a cohesive team, so definitely a challenging game.
We’ve just shown lately, we’ve taken on some of the top sides, 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 probably the challenge 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 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 issue 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 persuaded to sign him, spending the money we would need to."
Form Guide
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 shifted, including the manager twice and Sean Dyche is tasked with keeping the club in the Premier League this season. Since being named manager on 21 October, Dyche has won 10 Premier League points and the side are just above the relegation zone with 19 games of the season remaining.