Aston Villa against Nottingham Forest: Premier League Match Preview
Opening Thoughts
Hello and welcome to this Premier League clash between Villa and Forest. Villa will be the favourites to win in this lunchtime start as they are flying 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 coming into the game on the back of a defeat as Villa were beaten 4-1 by top-of-the-table Arsenal and Forest succumbed 2-0 to Everton.
It will be a difficult task for Sean Dyche’s side to obtain all three points with Villa boasting 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 maybe it’s new year, new story? The answer will be revealed very soon.
The team news will be announced shortly before the start at 12.30pm GMT.
Starting Elevens
The starting XIs have been announced. Unai Emery has made a quartet of alterations to his starting lineup who were defeated by 4-1 to Arsenal last time out.
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 changes to their matchday 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.
Pre-Match Quotes
Forest boss Sean Dyche has remarked on his counterpart today:
"He has done a excellent job as a manager there. Their signings has been good - invested a lot of money, to be fair, on some very good players and they’ve moulded it into a cohesive team, so certainly a challenging 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 fancied, we haven't performed as strongly against them. That’s probably the challenge of the group - rising to the expectation of each game rather than just the big games."
Transfer Update
The midfielder has no future at Aston Villa, an update 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 excellent professional, very dedicated. The issue we have with Harvey is this year he is on loan and if he is featuring regularly, we must buy him. We decided two months ago we are not convinced to sign him, spending the money we need."
League Context
How times change. This time last year Forest were third in the table, where Aston Villa are now. A lot of things have changed, including the manager on two occasions and Sean Dyche 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 to go.
