Villa against Forest: Premier League Preview
Opening Thoughts
Greetings and welcome to this English top-flight clash between Villa and Forest. Villa will be the strong favourites to win in this early kick-off as they are soaring this season and are currently occupying third place, while Nottingham Forest are seventeenth and just four points outside of the relegation zone.
Each side are coming into the game following a setback as Villa were defeated 4-1 by top-of-the-table Arsenal and Forest fell 2-0 to Everton.
It will be a tough task for Sean Dyche’s side to obtain all three points with Villa having one of the best home records in Europe at the moment and they also achieved a club 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 kick-off at 12.30pm GMT.
Starting Elevens
The lineups have been confirmed. Unai Emery has made a quartet of alterations 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.
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 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.
Manager Comments
Forest boss Sean Dyche has commented 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 top players and they’ve forged it into a strong side, so definitely a difficult game.
We’ve just demonstrated lately, we’ve faced some of the larger clubs, or the ones that are favoured every year, and performed admirably against them - and a couple of teams maybe not as highly-rated, we haven’t done as well against them. That’s likely the test of the group - rising to the expectation of each game rather than just the big games."
Player Situation
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 top professional, very dedicated. The problem we have with Harvey is this year he is a loan player and if he is featuring regularly, we are obligated to buy him. We decided two months ago we are not convinced to make the move permanent, committing the money we need."
Form Guide
What a difference a year makes. This time last year Forest were third in the table, where 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 named manager on 21 October, Dyche has secured 10 Premier League points and the side are just above the bottom three with 19 games of the season remaining.
