Aston Villa versus Forest: Top-Flight Preview
Preamble
Hello and welcome to this English top-flight fixture between Villa and Forest. Villa will be the expected winners to win in this lunchtime start as they are excelling 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.
The two teams are coming into the game off of the back of a loss as Villa were beaten 4-1 by top-of-the-table Arsenal and Forest lost 2-0 to Everton.
This shapes up as a challenging task for Sean Dyche’s side to secure all three points with Villa possessing one of the best home records in Europe at the moment and they also set a team 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 starting lineups will be announced shortly before the start at 12.30pm GMT.
Starting Elevens
The starting XIs have been announced. The Villa boss has made a quartet of alterations to his first eleven who were defeated by 4-1 to Arsenal in their previous match.
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.
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:
"Emery has delivered a great job as a manager there. Their recruitment has been strong - invested a lot of money, to be fair, on some very good players and they’ve moulded it into a good unit, so certainly a tough game.
We’ve just demonstrated lately, we’ve taken on some of the top sides, or the ones that are tipped every year, and performed admirably against them - and a couple of teams perhaps not as highly-rated, we haven't performed as strongly against them. That’s likely the challenge of the group - rising to the challenge of each game rather than just the big games."
Transfer Update
Harvey Elliott has will not be staying at Aston Villa, an update that was stated 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 very good professional, very respectful. The problem we have with Harvey is this year he is on loan and if he is playing matches, we must buy him. We made the decision two months ago we are not persuaded to sign him, spending the money we need."
League Context
The tables have turned. This time last year Nottingham Forest were in third place in the table, where Aston Villa are now. A lot of things have shifted, including the manager on two occasions and the current boss is tasked 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 bottom three with 19 games of the season remaining.
