Villa v Forest: Top-Flight Match Preview
Preamble
Welcome everyone to this English top-flight clash between Villa and Nottingham Forest. The home side are the strong favourites to win in this lunchtime start as they are soaring this season and are currently in third, while Forest are seventeenth and just four points outside of the relegation zone.
Each side are coming into the game on the back of a loss as Villa were beaten 4-1 by top-of-the-table Arsenal and Forest fell 2-0 to Everton.
It will be a tough task for Sean Dyche’s side 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 club record of 36 wins across all competitions this season. But maybe it’s new year, new story? We will find out very soon.
The starting lineups will be released shortly before kick-off at 12.30pm GMT.
Starting Elevens
The lineups have been confirmed. 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 starting squad after a 2-0 loss 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
Forest boss Sean Dyche has remarked on his opponent today:
"He’s [Unai Emery] done a excellent job as a manager there. Their signings has been strong - invested a lot of money, to be fair, on some top players and they’ve moulded it into a cohesive team, so definitely a challenging game.
We’ve just demonstrated lately, we’ve faced some of the bigger teams, or the ones that are tipped every year, and done very well against them - and a couple of teams perhaps not as highly-rated, we haven’t done as well against them. That’s probably the test of the group - meeting the expectation of each game rather than just the major fixtures."
Player Situation
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 commented:
"We respect him as much as possible because he’s a top professional, very dedicated. The situation we have with Harvey is this year he is a loan player and if he is featuring regularly, we are obligated to buy him. We decided two months ago we are not convinced to sign him, spending the money we would need to."
Form Guide
What a difference a year makes. This time last year Nottingham Forest were third 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 Premier League this season. Since being appointed on 21 October, Dyche has won 10 Premier League points and the side are just above the bottom three with 19 games of the season to go.
