Aston Villa versus Forest: Top-Flight Build-Up
Opening Thoughts
Greetings and welcome to this English top-flight fixture between Aston Villa and Nottingham Forest. Villa will be the strong favourites to win in this lunchtime start as they are excelling this season and are currently occupying third place, while Forest are seventeenth and just a handful of points outside of the relegation zone.
The two teams are coming into the game on the back of a setback as Villa were defeated 4-1 by top-of-the-table Arsenal and Forest lost 2-0 to Everton.
This shapes up as a tough task for the visitors to obtain all three points with Villa boasting one of the best home records in Europe at the moment and they also achieved 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 announced shortly before kick-off at 12.30pm GMT.
Starting Elevens
The team news is in. Unai Emery has made a quartet of alterations to his starting XI who lost 4-1 to Arsenal last time around.
Aston 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 also made four adjustments to their matchday 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.
Pre-Match Quotes
Forest boss Sean Dyche has remarked on his counterpart today:
"Emery has delivered a excellent job as a manager there. Their signings has been good - spent 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 shown lately, we’ve taken on some of the top sides, 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 haven’t done as well against them. That’s probably the test of the group - rising to the expectation of each game rather than just the major fixtures."
Transfer Update
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 said:
"We respect him all we can because he’s a excellent professional, very dedicated. The issue we have with Harvey is this year he is on loan and if he is featuring regularly, we are obligated to buy him. We made the decision two months ago we are not convinced to sign him, committing the money we need."
League Context
How times change. 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 twice and Sean Dyche is tasked with keeping the club in the Premier League this season. Since being appointed on 21 October, Dyche has secured 10 Premier League points and the side are just outside the relegation zone with 19 games of the season remaining.
