Aston Villa v Forest: Top-Flight Build-Up
Opening Thoughts
Greetings and welcome to this English top-flight clash between Aston Villa and Nottingham Forest. Aston Villa are the strong favourites to win in this lunchtime start as they are flying this season and are currently in third, while Forest are seventeenth and just four points outside of the drop zone.
The two teams are entering the game off of the back of a setback as Villa were beaten 4-1 by league-leading Arsenal and Forest lost 2-0 to Everton.
It will be a tough task for Forest to come away with all three points with Villa boasting one of the best home forms in Europe at the moment and they also recorded 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.
Team News
The starting XIs have been announced. The Villa boss has made four changes 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.
Bench: Bizot, Digne, Sancho, Garcia, Carroll, Bogarde, Hemmings, Malen, Jimoh-Aloba.
Nottingham 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.
Substitutes: Sels, Morato, Awoniyi, Luiz, Kalimuendo, McAtee, Zinchenko, Savona, Abbott.
Dugout Insights
Nottingham Forest manager Sean Dyche has remarked on his opponent today:
"He has done a excellent job as a manager there. Their recruitment has been impressive - invested a lot of money, to be fair, on some top players and they’ve forged it into a good unit, so definitely a difficult game.
We’ve just demonstrated 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 haven't performed as strongly against them. That’s probably the test of the group - meeting the expectation of each game rather than just the major fixtures."
Squad News
Harvey Elliott 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 stated:
"We respect him all we can because he’s a very good professional, very dedicated. The issue 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 would need to."
Season Snapshot
The tables have turned. This time last year Forest were third in the table, where Villa are now. A lot of things have altered, including the manager twice and the current boss is tasked with keeping the club in the top-flight this season. Since being named manager on 21 October, Dyche has secured 10 Premier League points and the side are just outside the relegation zone with 19 games of the season remaining.
