Aston Villa against Nottingham Forest: Premier League Preview
Introduction
Greetings and welcome to this English top-flight encounter between Aston Villa and Forest. Villa will be the favourites to win in this lunchtime start as they are soaring this season and are currently in third, while Forest are 17th and just a handful of points outside of the drop zone.
The two teams are entering the game off of the back of a defeat as Villa were overcome 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 secure all three points with Villa having one of the best home records in Europe at the moment and they also achieved a team record of 36 wins across all competitions this season. But perhaps it’s new year, new story? The answer will be revealed very soon.
The starting lineups will drop shortly before the start at 12.30pm GMT.
Team News
The team news is in. Unai Emery has made four changes to his starting XI who were defeated by 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 also 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.
Manager Comments
Forest boss Sean Dyche has said on his counterpart today:
"He has done a fantastic job as a manager there. Their recruitment has been good - spent a lot of money, to be fair, on some excellent players and they’ve shaped it into a good unit, so certainly a difficult game.
We’ve just shown lately, we’ve faced some of the top sides, or the ones that are tipped every year, and done very well against them - and a couple of teams maybe not as highly-rated, we struggled more against them. That’s probably the test of the group - rising to the challenge of each game rather than just the big games."
Player Situation
The midfielder has will not be staying at Aston Villa, news that was revealed by the manager Emery in the build-up to this match. The boss said:
"I am respecting him all we can 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 must buy him. We decided two months ago we are not convinced to make the move permanent, 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 altered, including the manager on two occasions and the current boss is tasked with keeping the club in the Premier League this season. Since being named manager 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 to go.
