Villa against Forest: Top-Flight Match Preview
Introduction
Greetings and welcome to this English top-flight clash between Villa and Nottingham Forest. Villa will be the expected winners to win in this lunchtime start as they are excelling this season and are currently in third, while Forest are in 17th position and just a handful of points outside of the relegation zone.
Both clubs are coming into the game on the back of a loss as Villa were overcome 4-1 by top-of-the-table Arsenal and Forest fell 2-0 to Everton.
This shapes up as a difficult task for Sean Dyche’s side to secure all three points with Villa possessing 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 a new year and a new narrative? The answer will be revealed very soon.
The team news will be released shortly before kick-off at 12.30pm GMT.
Starting Elevens
The team news is in. The Villa boss has made a quartet of alterations to his first eleven who were defeated by 4-1 to Arsenal last time around.
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 changes 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.
Bench: Sels, Morato, Awoniyi, Luiz, Kalimuendo, McAtee, Zinchenko, Savona, Abbott.
Manager Comments
Forest boss Sean Dyche has said on his opponent today:
"He’s [Unai Emery] done a fantastic job as a manager there. Their signings has been impressive - spent a lot of money, to be fair, on some very good players and they’ve forged it into a cohesive team, so certainly a tough game.
We’ve just shown lately, we’ve faced some of the larger clubs, or the ones that are tipped every year, and performed admirably against them - and a couple of teams perhaps not as fancied, we struggled more against them. That’s probably the challenge of the group - rising to the expectation of each game rather than just the major fixtures."
Squad News
The midfielder has will not be staying at Aston Villa, an update that was confirmed by the manager Emery in the build-up to this match. The boss said:
"We respect him all we can because he’s a top professional, very respectful. 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 persuaded to sign him, spending the money we would need to."
League Context
How times change. This time last year Forest were in third place 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 named manager on 21 October, Dyche has won 10 Premier League points and the side are just outside the relegation zone with 19 games of the season remaining.
