Aston Villa v Nottingham Forest: Premier League Match Preview
Opening Thoughts
Greetings and welcome to this Premier League encounter between Aston Villa and Nottingham Forest. Aston Villa are the expected winners to win in this lunchtime start as they are flying this season and are currently in third, while Forest are in 17th position and just a handful of points outside of the relegation zone.
Each side are coming into the game off of the back of a defeat as Villa were defeated 4-1 by top-of-the-table Arsenal and Forest fell 2-0 to Everton.
It will be a difficult task for the visitors to obtain all three points with Villa having 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? We will find out very soon.
The starting lineups will drop shortly before kick-off at 12.30pm GMT.
Team News
The team news is in. The Villa boss has made four changes to his first eleven who lost 4-1 to Arsenal last time around.
Aston 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.
Bench: Sels, Morato, Awoniyi, Luiz, Kalimuendo, McAtee, Zinchenko, Savona, Abbott.
Pre-Match Quotes
Nottingham Forest manager Sean Dyche has remarked on his counterpart today:
"He’s [Unai Emery] done a fantastic job as a manager there. Their transfer business has been good - invested a lot of money, to be fair, on some top players and they’ve forged it into a cohesive team, so definitely a challenging game.
We’ve just demonstrated lately, we’ve played against some of the bigger teams, or the ones that are tipped every year, and held our own against them - and a couple of teams perhaps not as highly-rated, we struggled more against them. That’s likely the test of the group - meeting the expectation of each game rather than just the major fixtures."
Transfer Update
Harvey Elliott 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 all we can because he’s a excellent 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 persuaded to make the move permanent, spending the money we need."
League Context
The tables have turned. This time last year Nottingham Forest were third in the table, where Villa are now. A lot of things have altered, including the manager on two occasions and Sean Dyche is charged with keeping the club in the top-flight this season. Since being named manager on 21 October, Dyche has accumulated 10 Premier League points and the side are just above the relegation zone with 19 games of the season to go.
