Villa versus Forest: Top-Flight Build-Up
Introduction
Welcome everyone to this English top-flight encounter between Villa and Nottingham Forest. Villa will be the favourites to win in this early kick-off as they are excelling this season and are currently in third, while Forest are in 17th position and just a handful of points outside of the drop zone.
The two teams are entering the game on the back of a loss as Villa were defeated 4-1 by top-of-the-table Arsenal and Forest lost 2-0 to Everton.
It will be a challenging task for the visitors to secure all three points with Villa possessing 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? The answer will be revealed very soon.
The starting lineups will be released 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 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 likewise made four adjustments to their matchday squad after a 2-0 defeat 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 commented on his opponent today:
"Emery has delivered a fantastic job as a manager there. Their recruitment has been impressive - spent a lot of money, to be fair, on some top players and they’ve forged it into a good unit, so certainly a tough game.
We’ve just shown lately, we’ve played against some of the top sides, or the ones that are fancied every year, and done very well against them - and a couple of teams perhaps not as fancied, we struggled more against them. That’s likely the test of the group - rising to the expectation of each game rather than just the major fixtures."
Player Situation
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 said:
"I am respecting him all we can because he’s a excellent professional, very respectful. The situation we have with Harvey is this year he is a loan player and if he is playing matches, we must 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 shifted, including the manager twice and the current boss is charged with keeping the club in the top-flight this season. Since being appointed on 21 October, Dyche has accumulated 10 Premier League points and the side are just above the relegation zone with 19 games of the season remaining.
