Villa v Nottingham Forest: Top-Flight Preview
Preamble
Welcome everyone to this English top-flight encounter between Villa and Forest. The home side are the expected winners to win in this lunchtime start as they are excelling this season and are currently occupying third place, while Forest are 17th and just four points outside of the relegation zone.
Each side are coming into the game off of the back of a setback as Villa were beaten 4-1 by top-of-the-table Arsenal and Forest succumbed 2-0 to Everton.
This promises to 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 perhaps it’s new year, new story? We will find out very soon.
The confirmed XIs will be released shortly before kick-off at 12.30pm GMT.
Starting Elevens
The starting XIs have been announced. Unai Emery has made a quartet of alterations to his starting lineup who were defeated by 4-1 to Arsenal in their previous match.
Villa: Martinez, Cash, Konsa, Lindelof, Maatsen, Kamara, Tielemans, McGinn, Buendia, Rogers, Watkins.
Substitutes: 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.
Bench: Sels, Morato, Awoniyi, Luiz, Kalimuendo, McAtee, Zinchenko, Savona, Abbott.
Manager Comments
Nottingham Forest manager Sean Dyche has commented on his counterpart today:
"Emery has delivered a fantastic job as a manager there. Their signings has been impressive - spent a lot of money, to be fair, on some very good players and they’ve shaped it into a good unit, so certainly a difficult game.
We’ve just demonstrated lately, we’ve taken on some of the top sides, or the ones that are tipped every year, and held our own against them - and a couple of teams perhaps not as fancied, we haven’t done as well against them. That’s likely the challenge of the group - rising to the expectation of each game rather than just the big games."
Transfer Update
Harvey Elliott has no future at Aston Villa, an update 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 excellent professional, very dedicated. The problem 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, committing the money we would need to."
Season Snapshot
What a difference a year makes. This time last year Nottingham Forest were third 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 won 10 Premier League points and the side are just outside the bottom three with 19 games of the season to go.
