Villa v Nottingham Forest: Top-Flight Build-Up
Opening Thoughts
Hello and welcome to this English top-flight encounter 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 Forest are in 17th position and just a handful of points outside of the drop zone.
The two teams are coming into the game following a defeat as Villa were defeated 4-1 by league-leading Arsenal and Forest fell 2-0 to Everton.
This promises to be a challenging 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 recorded a team 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 starting lineups will be released shortly before the start at 12.30pm GMT.
Confirmed Lineups
The starting XIs have been announced. Unai Emery has made four changes to his first eleven 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.
Nottingham Forest have likewise made four adjustments to their starting squad after a 2-0 loss 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.
Manager Comments
Nottingham Forest manager Sean Dyche has said on his counterpart today:
"He has done a fantastic job as a manager there. Their transfer business has been strong - invested a lot of money, to be fair, on some top players and they’ve forged it into a good unit, so definitely a challenging game.
We’ve just shown lately, we’ve faced some of the bigger teams, or the ones that are favoured every year, and done very well against them - and a couple of teams perhaps not as fancied, we struggled more against them. That’s likely the challenge of the group - rising to the expectation of each game rather than just the big games."
Squad News
The midfielder has will not be staying 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 all we can because he’s a excellent professional, very dedicated. The problem we have with Harvey is this year he is a loan player and if he is playing matches, we must buy him. We decided two months ago we are not persuaded to make the move permanent, committing the money we would need to."
League Context
The tables have turned. This time last year Nottingham Forest were in third place in the table, where Villa are now. A lot of things have shifted, including the manager twice and the current boss is charged with keeping the club in the top-flight this season. Since being appointed on 21 October, Dyche has accumulated 10 Premier League points and the side are just above the relegation zone with 19 games of the season to go.
