Aston Villa against Forest: Premier League Build-Up
Introduction
Greetings and welcome to this English top-flight clash between Aston Villa and Forest. Aston Villa are the strong favourites to win in this early kick-off as they are excelling this season and are currently in third, while Nottingham Forest are 17th and just a handful of points outside of the relegation zone.
Both clubs are coming into the game following a setback as Villa were defeated 4-1 by league-leading Arsenal and Forest fell 2-0 to Everton.
This promises to be a tough task for Sean Dyche’s side to obtain all three points with Villa boasting 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 perhaps it’s a new year and a new narrative? We will find out very soon.
The starting lineups 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 first eleven who were defeated by 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.
Forest have also made four adjustments to their starting squad after a 2-0 defeat to Everton.
Nott’m 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
Nottingham Forest manager Sean Dyche has commented on his counterpart today:
"Emery has delivered a fantastic job as a manager there. Their recruitment has been impressive - invested a lot of money, to be fair, on some top players and they’ve moulded it into a strong side, so definitely a tough game.
We’ve just shown lately, we’ve taken on 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 performed as strongly against them. That’s likely the test of the group - rising to the challenge of each game rather than just the major fixtures."
Player Situation
The midfielder has no future at Aston Villa, an update that was stated by the manager Unai Emery in the build-up to this match. The boss stated:
"I am respecting him as much as possible because he’s a top professional, very respectful. The situation we have with Harvey is this year he is a loan player 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."
Form Guide
What a difference a year makes. This time last year Nottingham Forest were third in the table, where Villa are now. A lot of things have changed, including the manager on two occasions and the current boss is charged with keeping the club in the top-flight this season. Since being appointed on 21 October, Dyche has secured 10 Premier League points and the side are just above the bottom three with 19 games of the season remaining.
