Aston Villa against Forest: Top-Flight Preview
Introduction
Greetings and welcome to this English top-flight encounter between Aston Villa and Nottingham Forest. Aston Villa are the strong favourites to win in this lunchtime start as they are excelling this season and are currently sitting third, while Nottingham Forest are 17th and just four points outside of the drop zone.
Each side are entering the game off of the back of a loss as Villa were defeated 4-1 by league-leading Arsenal and Forest lost 2-0 to Everton.
This shapes up as a difficult task for Forest to obtain all three points with Villa possessing one of the best home records 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? The answer will be revealed very soon.
The starting lineups will be released shortly before kick-off at 12.30pm GMT.
Confirmed Lineups
The starting XIs have been announced. Unai Emery has made a quartet of alterations to his starting lineup who lost 4-1 to Arsenal in their previous match.
Aston Villa: Martinez, Cash, Konsa, Lindelof, Maatsen, Kamara, Tielemans, McGinn, Buendia, Rogers, Watkins.
Substitutes: Bizot, Digne, Sancho, Garcia, Carroll, Bogarde, Hemmings, Malen, Jimoh-Aloba.
Forest have likewise made four adjustments to their starting 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 has done a great job as a manager there. Their transfer business has been impressive - invested a lot of money, to be fair, on some very good players and they’ve shaped it into a cohesive team, so definitely a difficult game.
We’ve just demonstrated lately, we’ve faced some of the top sides, or the ones that are favoured every year, and performed admirably against them - and a couple of teams perhaps not as highly-rated, we haven’t done as well against them. That’s likely the test of the group - meeting 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 confirmed by the manager Unai Emery in the lead-up to this match. The boss stated:
"I am respecting him as much as possible because he’s a very good professional, very respectful. The problem we have with Harvey is this year he is a loan player 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, spending the money we would need to."
Season Snapshot
How times change. This time last year Nottingham Forest were third in the table, where Aston Villa are now. A lot of things have shifted, including the manager twice and the current boss is tasked with keeping the club in the Premier League this season. Since being appointed on 21 October, Dyche has won 10 Premier League points and the side are just above the relegation zone with 19 games of the season remaining.
