Villa against Forest: Premier League Preview
Introduction
Welcome everyone to this English top-flight encounter between Villa and Forest. The home side are the favourites to win in this lunchtime start as they are soaring this season and are currently sitting third, while Forest are 17th and just four points outside of the relegation zone.
Both clubs are entering the game on the back of a loss as Villa were defeated 4-1 by league-leading Arsenal and Forest lost 2-0 to Everton.
It will be a difficult task for the visitors to obtain all three points with Villa boasting one of the best home forms 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? All will become clear very soon.
The team news will be released shortly before kick-off at 12.30pm GMT.
Confirmed Lineups
The lineups have been confirmed. The Villa boss has made four changes to his first eleven who lost 4-1 to Arsenal in their previous match.
Villa: Martinez, Cash, Konsa, Lindelof, Maatsen, Kamara, Tielemans, McGinn, Buendia, Rogers, Watkins.
Bench: 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.
Nottingham Forest: Victor, Williams, Murillo, Anderson, Gibbs-White, Dominguez, I Jesus, Hutchinson, Bakwa, Milenkovic, Aina.
Substitutes: Sels, Morato, Awoniyi, Luiz, Kalimuendo, McAtee, Zinchenko, Savona, Abbott.
Pre-Match Quotes
Forest boss Sean Dyche has commented on his opponent today:
"Emery has delivered a great job as a manager there. Their transfer business has been strong - invested a lot of money, to be fair, on some very good players and they’ve forged it into a cohesive team, so certainly a challenging game.
We’ve just shown lately, we’ve played against some of the larger clubs, or the ones that are fancied every year, and done very well against them - and a couple of teams maybe not as fancied, we struggled more against them. That’s probably the test of the group - meeting the expectation of each game rather than just the big games."
Player Situation
Harvey Elliott has will not be staying at Aston Villa, news that was stated by the manager Emery in the lead-up to this match. The boss commented:
"We respect him as much as possible because he’s a top professional, very respectful. The situation we have with Harvey is this year he is a loan player and if he is playing matches, we are obligated to buy him. We decided two months ago we are not convinced to sign him, spending the money we would need to."
League Context
The tables have turned. This time last year Forest were third in the table, where Aston Villa are now. A lot of things have shifted, including the manager on two occasions and Sean Dyche 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 outside the bottom three with 19 games of the season to go.
