Aston Villa against Forest: Premier League Preview
Preamble
Hello and welcome to this Premier League encounter between Villa and Forest. Villa will be the favourites to win in this lunchtime start as they are soaring this season and are currently occupying third place, while Nottingham Forest are seventeenth and just a handful of points outside of the drop zone.
Each side are entering the game on the back of a defeat as Villa were defeated 4-1 by league-leading Arsenal and Forest succumbed 2-0 to Everton.
This promises to be a difficult task for Forest to come away with 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 maybe it’s a new year and a new narrative? All will become clear very soon.
The confirmed XIs will be announced shortly before kick-off at 12.30pm GMT.
Team News
The lineups have been confirmed. Unai Emery has made a quartet of alterations to his starting XI who lost 4-1 to Arsenal last time out.
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 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.
Substitutes: Sels, Morato, Awoniyi, Luiz, Kalimuendo, McAtee, Zinchenko, Savona, Abbott.
Dugout Insights
Forest boss Sean Dyche has said on his opponent today:
"He has done a great job as a manager there. Their recruitment has been good - spent a lot of money, to be fair, on some excellent players and they’ve forged it into a good unit, so certainly a tough game.
We’ve just shown lately, we’ve taken on some of the larger clubs, or the ones that are fancied every year, and done very well against them - and a couple of teams perhaps not as highly-rated, we struggled more against them. That’s likely the challenge of the group - rising to the expectation of each game rather than just the major fixtures."
Squad News
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 said:
"We respect him all we can because he’s a excellent professional, very dedicated. The problem 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 convinced to make the move permanent, spending the money we need."
Season Snapshot
The tables have turned. 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 the current boss is charged 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 outside the bottom three with 19 games of the season to go.
