Aston Villa v Forest: Top-Flight Preview
Opening Thoughts
Hello and welcome to this English top-flight encounter between Villa and Forest. The home side are the expected winners to win in this lunchtime start as they are soaring this season and are currently occupying third place, while Nottingham Forest are seventeenth and just a handful of points outside of the relegation zone.
Each side are entering the game off of the back of a loss as Villa were overcome 4-1 by top-of-the-table Arsenal and Forest lost 2-0 to Everton.
It will be a difficult task for the visitors 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 maybe it’s new year, new story? The answer will be revealed very soon.
The team news will drop shortly before the start at 12.30pm GMT.
Starting Elevens
The lineups have been confirmed. Unai Emery has made a quartet of alterations to his first eleven who lost 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 starting 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.
Dugout Insights
Forest boss Sean Dyche has remarked on his opponent today:
"He’s [Unai Emery] done a great job as a manager there. Their signings has been strong - invested a lot of money, to be fair, on some excellent players and they’ve moulded it into a strong side, so definitely a difficult game.
We’ve just demonstrated lately, we’ve faced some of the bigger teams, or the ones that are fancied every year, and held our own against them - and a couple of teams perhaps not as fancied, we struggled more against them. That’s probably the test of the group - rising to the expectation of each game rather than just the big games."
Player Situation
The midfielder has no future at Aston Villa, news that was confirmed 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 respectful. The situation we have with Harvey is this year he is on loan and if he is playing matches, we are obligated to buy him. We made the decision two months ago we are not persuaded to sign him, committing the money we would need to."
Season Snapshot
The tables have turned. This time last year Forest were third in the table, where Villa are now. A lot of things have altered, including the manager twice and the current boss is tasked with keeping the club in the top-flight this season. Since being named manager on 21 October, Dyche has secured 10 Premier League points and the side are just above the relegation zone with 19 games of the season to go.