Villa versus Forest: Premier League Match Preview
Introduction
Hello and welcome to this English top-flight encounter between Aston Villa and Forest. Villa will be the expected winners to win in this early kick-off as they are soaring this season and are currently in third, while Forest are seventeenth and just a handful of points outside of the relegation zone.
Each side are entering the game on the back of a defeat as Villa were defeated 4-1 by top-of-the-table Arsenal and Forest fell 2-0 to Everton.
This promises to be a tough task for Forest to obtain all three points with Villa having 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 perhaps it’s a new year and a new narrative? The answer will be revealed very soon.
The starting lineups will be announced shortly before the start at 12.30pm GMT.
Team News
The lineups have been confirmed. Unai Emery has made four changes to his first eleven who lost 4-1 to Arsenal last time out.
Aston 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 likewise made four adjustments to their starting squad after a 2-0 loss to Everton.
Nottingham Forest: Victor, Williams, Murillo, Anderson, Gibbs-White, Dominguez, I Jesus, Hutchinson, Bakwa, Milenkovic, Aina.
Bench: Sels, Morato, Awoniyi, Luiz, Kalimuendo, McAtee, Zinchenko, Savona, Abbott.
Manager Comments
Nottingham Forest manager Sean Dyche has remarked on his counterpart today:
"He’s [Unai Emery] done a great job as a manager there. Their recruitment has been strong - invested a lot of money, to be fair, on some excellent players and they’ve moulded it into a cohesive team, so certainly a challenging game.
We’ve just demonstrated lately, we’ve faced some of the bigger teams, or the ones that are tipped every year, and performed admirably against them - and a couple of teams maybe 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 big games."
Player Situation
The midfielder has will not be staying at Aston Villa, news that was confirmed by the manager Unai Emery in the lead-up to this match. The boss commented:
"We respect him all we can because he’s a very good professional, very dedicated. 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 made the decision two months ago we are not convinced to sign him, committing the money we need."
Form Guide
How times change. 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 Sean Dyche 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 to go.
