Villa versus Nottingham Forest: Top-Flight Preview
Preamble
Greetings and welcome to this English top-flight fixture between Villa and Nottingham Forest. Villa will be the strong favourites to win in this lunchtime start as they are soaring this season and are currently sitting third, while Nottingham Forest are in 17th position and just a handful of points outside of the relegation zone.
The two teams are coming into the game following a loss as Villa were overcome 4-1 by top-of-the-table Arsenal and Forest fell 2-0 to Everton.
It will be a challenging task for the visitors to obtain 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 new year, new story? All will become clear very soon.
The team news will be announced shortly before kick-off at 12.30pm GMT.
Starting Elevens
The team news is in. The Villa boss has made a quartet of alterations to his first eleven who were defeated by 4-1 to Arsenal last time around.
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.
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 remarked on his opponent today:
"Emery has delivered 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 shaped it into a good unit, so certainly a tough game.
We’ve just shown lately, we’ve faced some of the top sides, or the ones that are favoured every year, and performed admirably against them - and a couple of teams perhaps not as fancied, we struggled more against them. That’s likely the challenge of the group - meeting the expectation of each game rather than just the big games."
Squad News
Harvey Elliott has will not be staying at Aston Villa, news that was stated by the manager Emery in the build-up to this match. The boss said:
"We respect him as much as possible 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 playing matches, we are obligated to buy him. We made the decision two months ago we are not persuaded to sign him, committing the money we need."
League Context
How times change. This time last year Nottingham Forest were in third place in the table, where Villa are now. A lot of things have altered, 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 won 10 Premier League points and the side are just above the relegation zone with 19 games of the season remaining.
