Villa against Forest: Premier League Match Preview
Preamble
Hello and welcome to this English top-flight fixture between Aston Villa and Nottingham Forest. Aston Villa are the expected winners to win in this early kick-off as they are excelling 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.
Each side are entering the game on the back of a setback as Villa were overcome 4-1 by top-of-the-table Arsenal and Forest lost 2-0 to Everton.
This shapes up as a difficult task for the visitors to come away with all three points with Villa having one of the best home forms in Europe at the moment and they also set a club record of 36 wins across all competitions this season. But perhaps it’s new year, new story? The answer will be revealed very soon.
The team news will be released shortly before the start at 12.30pm GMT.
Confirmed Lineups
The team news is in. The Villa boss has made four changes to his starting lineup who lost 4-1 to Arsenal in their previous match.
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 defeat to Everton.
Nottingham 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
Nottingham Forest manager Sean Dyche has remarked on his counterpart today:
"Emery has delivered a great job as a manager there. Their transfer business has been strong - spent 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 played against some of the bigger teams, or the ones that are fancied every year, and performed admirably against them - and a couple of teams maybe not as fancied, we haven’t done as well against them. That’s probably the challenge of the group - meeting the expectation of each game rather than just the big games."
Squad News
The midfielder 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 commented:
"We respect him as much as possible because he’s a very good professional, very respectful. The problem we have with Harvey is this year he is a loan player and if he is featuring regularly, we must buy him. We decided two months ago we are not convinced to sign him, committing the money we need."
League Context
What a difference a year makes. This time last year 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 Premier League 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.
