Aston Villa v Forest: Top-Flight Match Preview
Opening Thoughts
Greetings and welcome to this English top-flight clash between Villa and Forest. Villa will be the expected winners to win in this early kick-off as they are soaring this season and are currently occupying third place, while Forest are in 17th position and just four points outside of the relegation zone.
The two teams are coming into the game on the back of a defeat as Villa were overcome 4-1 by top-of-the-table Arsenal and Forest fell 2-0 to Everton.
It will be a challenging task for Forest to obtain all three points with Villa having one of the best home records in Europe at the moment and they also recorded a club record of 36 wins across all competitions this season. But perhaps it’s a new year and a new narrative? All will become clear very soon.
The confirmed XIs will be released shortly before kick-off at 12.30pm GMT.
Confirmed Lineups
The starting XIs have been announced. Unai Emery has made four changes to his starting lineup who were defeated by 4-1 to Arsenal last time out.
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 likewise made four adjustments to their matchday 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.
Manager Comments
Nottingham Forest manager Sean Dyche has said on his counterpart today:
"He has done a great job as a manager there. Their signings has been good - spent a lot of money, to be fair, on some excellent players and they’ve shaped it into a strong side, so definitely a tough game.
We’ve just demonstrated lately, we’ve faced some of the top sides, or the ones that are fancied every year, and performed admirably against them - and a couple of teams maybe not as highly-rated, we haven't performed as strongly against them. That’s probably the test of the group - meeting the expectation of each game rather than just the big games."
Player Situation
Harvey Elliott 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 stated:
"We respect him all we can because he’s a very good professional, very dedicated. 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 convinced to sign him, spending the money we would need to."
League Context
How times change. This time last year Nottingham Forest were third in the table, where Aston Villa are now. A lot of things have changed, including the manager twice and the current boss is tasked with keeping the club in the Premier League this season. Since being named manager 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.
