Aston Villa versus Forest: Top-Flight Build-Up
Introduction
Welcome everyone to this Premier League fixture between Aston Villa and Forest. The home side are the favourites to win in this lunchtime start as they are excelling this season and are currently sitting third, 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 setback as Villa were overcome 4-1 by league-leading Arsenal and Forest fell 2-0 to Everton.
This promises to be a difficult task for Forest to obtain all three points with Villa having one of the best home records in Europe at the moment and they also set a team record of 36 wins across all competitions this season. But perhaps it’s a new year and a new narrative? The answer will be revealed very soon.
The team news will be released shortly before the start at 12.30pm GMT.
Starting Elevens
The starting XIs have been announced. The Villa boss has made four changes to his starting XI who lost 4-1 to Arsenal last time around.
Aston 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 changes to their matchday 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.
Pre-Match Quotes
Nottingham Forest manager Sean Dyche has remarked on his counterpart today:
"He’s [Unai Emery] done a fantastic job as a manager there. Their transfer business has been strong - 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 demonstrated lately, we’ve taken on some of the bigger teams, or the ones that are fancied every year, and done very well against them - and a couple of teams maybe not as fancied, we struggled more against them. That’s probably the test of the group - meeting the expectation of each game rather than just the big games."
Transfer Update
The midfielder has no future at Aston Villa, news that was stated by the manager Unai Emery in the lead-up to this match. The boss stated:
"I am respecting him all we can because he’s a excellent professional, very respectful. The issue we have with Harvey is this year he is on loan and if he is featuring regularly, we are obligated to buy him. We made the decision two months ago we are not convinced to sign him, committing the money we need."
Season Snapshot
The tables have turned. This time last year Nottingham Forest were in third place in the table, where Aston Villa are now. A lot of things have changed, including the manager twice and the current boss 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 outside the bottom three with 19 games of the season to go.
