Aston Villa versus Nottingham Forest: Premier League Build-Up
Preamble
Greetings and welcome to this Premier League clash between Villa and Forest. Aston Villa are the expected winners to win in this lunchtime start as they are soaring this season and are currently occupying third place, while Nottingham Forest are in 17th position and just a handful of points outside of the drop 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.
It will be a challenging task for Forest to secure all three points with Villa possessing one of the best home forms 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? We will find out very soon.
The team news will drop shortly before the start at 12.30pm GMT.
Team News
The starting XIs have been announced. Unai Emery has made a quartet of alterations to his starting lineup who lost 4-1 to Arsenal in their previous match.
Aston 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 also made four changes to their starting 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
Forest boss Sean Dyche has commented on his counterpart today:
"He has done a excellent job as a manager there. Their recruitment has been strong - spent a lot of money, to be fair, on some very good players and they’ve shaped it into a good unit, so certainly a difficult game.
We’ve just demonstrated lately, we’ve faced some of the bigger teams, or the ones that are tipped every year, and held our own against them - and a couple of teams maybe not as fancied, we struggled more against them. That’s likely the test of the group - meeting the expectation of each game rather than just the major fixtures."
Player Situation
The midfielder has no future at Aston Villa, an update that was stated by the manager Unai Emery in the lead-up to this match. The boss commented:
"We respect him as much as possible because he’s a excellent professional, very dedicated. 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 persuaded to make the move permanent, 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 changed, 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 won 10 Premier League points and the side are just outside the bottom three with 19 games of the season to go.
