Villa v Nottingham Forest: Premier League Preview
Introduction
Greetings and welcome to this Premier League fixture between Aston Villa and Forest. Villa will be the strong favourites to win in this lunchtime start as they are excelling this season and are currently in third, while Forest are seventeenth and just a handful of points outside of the drop zone.
Each side are coming into the game off of the back of a defeat as Villa were overcome 4-1 by top-of-the-table Arsenal and Forest succumbed 2-0 to Everton.
This promises to be a tough 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 new year, new story? We will find out very soon.
The starting lineups will be announced shortly before kick-off at 12.30pm GMT.
Team News
The team news is in. Unai Emery has made four changes to his first eleven who lost 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 also made four changes to their starting squad after a 2-0 defeat 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.
Dugout Insights
Nottingham Forest manager Sean Dyche has said on his counterpart today:
"He has done 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 shaped it into a good unit, so definitely a challenging game.
We’ve just demonstrated lately, we’ve taken on some of the larger clubs, or the ones that are fancied every year, and held our own against them - and a couple of teams maybe not as highly-rated, we haven't performed as strongly against them. That’s likely the test of the group - meeting the challenge of each game rather than just the big games."
Squad News
The midfielder has no future at Aston Villa, news that was stated by the manager Emery in the build-up to this match. The boss stated:
"We respect him all we can because he’s a excellent professional, very respectful. The situation 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 sign him, spending the money we would need to."
Season Snapshot
The tables have turned. This time last year Nottingham Forest were in third place in the table, where Aston Villa are now. A lot of things have altered, including the manager on two occasions and the current boss is tasked 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 relegation zone with 19 games of the season to go.
