Villa v Forest: Premier League Match Preview
Introduction
Greetings and welcome to this Premier League encounter between Villa and Nottingham Forest. Villa will be the expected winners to win in this early kick-off as they are soaring this season and are currently occupying third place, while Nottingham Forest are 17th and just a handful of points outside of the relegation zone.
The two teams are entering the game following a setback as Villa were overcome 4-1 by league-leading Arsenal and Forest lost 2-0 to Everton.
It will be a challenging task for Forest to come away with all three points with Villa boasting 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 team news will be released shortly before kick-off at 12.30pm GMT.
Starting Elevens
The team news is in. Unai Emery has made four changes to his starting lineup who lost 4-1 to Arsenal last time around.
Aston 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 defeat 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.
Manager Comments
Forest boss Sean Dyche has said on his opponent today:
"Emery has delivered a excellent job as a manager there. Their transfer business has been good - invested a lot of money, to be fair, on some excellent players and they’ve forged it into a good unit, so definitely a challenging game.
We’ve just demonstrated lately, we’ve taken on some of the top sides, or the ones that are fancied every year, and done very well against them - and a couple of teams maybe not as fancied, we haven't performed as strongly against them. That’s probably the challenge of the group - rising to 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 revealed by the manager Unai Emery in the build-up to this match. The boss said:
"We respect him all we can because he’s a excellent professional, very dedicated. The issue 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 made the decision two months ago we are not persuaded to sign him, spending the money we need."
League Context
The tables have turned. This time last year Nottingham Forest were third in the table, where Aston Villa are now. A lot of things have changed, including the manager twice and the current boss is charged with keeping the club in the top-flight this season. Since being named manager 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.
