Aston Villa v Forest: Premier League Build-Up
Introduction
Greetings and welcome to this English top-flight fixture between Aston Villa and Nottingham Forest. Villa will be the expected winners to win in this lunchtime start as they are soaring this season and are currently sitting third, while Nottingham Forest are in 17th position and just four points outside of the relegation zone.
The two teams are entering the game off of the back of a setback as Villa were defeated 4-1 by league-leading Arsenal and Forest lost 2-0 to Everton.
This promises to be a difficult task for the visitors to come away with all three points with Villa possessing one of the best home forms in Europe at the moment and they also achieved a club record of 36 wins across all competitions this season. But maybe it’s a new year and a new narrative? All will become clear very soon.
The confirmed XIs will drop shortly before kick-off at 12.30pm GMT.
Confirmed Lineups
The team news is in. Unai Emery has made four changes to his starting XI who were defeated by 4-1 to Arsenal last time around.
Aston Villa: Martinez, Cash, Konsa, Lindelof, Maatsen, Kamara, Tielemans, McGinn, Buendia, Rogers, Watkins.
Substitutes: 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.
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.
Dugout Insights
Nottingham Forest manager Sean Dyche has remarked on his counterpart today:
"Emery has delivered a excellent job as a manager there. Their recruitment has been strong - spent a lot of money, to be fair, on some very good players and they’ve moulded it into a good unit, so certainly a challenging game.
We’ve just shown lately, we’ve played against some of the top sides, or the ones that are tipped every year, and held our own against them - and a couple of teams maybe not as highly-rated, we haven’t done as well against them. That’s likely the challenge of the group - meeting the challenge of each game rather than just the big games."
Player Situation
The midfielder has no future at Aston Villa, news that was revealed by the manager Unai Emery in the build-up to this match. The boss commented:
"We respect him as much as possible because he’s a top professional, very dedicated. The issue we have with Harvey is this year he is on loan and if he is playing matches, we must buy him. We decided two months ago we are not convinced to sign him, committing the money we would need to."
Form Guide
The tables have turned. 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 on two occasions and the current boss 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 bottom three with 19 games of the season to go.
