Villa versus Forest: Premier League Build-Up
Preamble
Hello and welcome to this Premier League encounter between Villa and Forest. Aston Villa are the strong favourites to win in this early kick-off as they are flying this season and are currently sitting third, while Nottingham Forest are 17th and just four points outside of the drop zone.
Both clubs are coming into the game following a loss as Villa were overcome 4-1 by top-of-the-table Arsenal and Forest fell 2-0 to Everton.
This promises to be a difficult task for Sean Dyche’s side to obtain all three points with Villa possessing one of the best home records in Europe at the moment and they also set a team record of 36 wins across all competitions this season. But perhaps it’s a new year and a new narrative? All will become clear very soon.
The starting lineups will be announced shortly before kick-off at 12.30pm GMT.
Confirmed Lineups
The starting XIs have been announced. The Villa boss has made a quartet of alterations to his first eleven who were defeated by 4-1 to Arsenal in their previous match.
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 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
Nottingham Forest manager Sean Dyche has commented on his opponent today:
"He’s [Unai Emery] done a fantastic job as a manager there. Their recruitment has been good - invested a lot of money, to be fair, on some excellent players and they’ve moulded it into a good unit, so definitely a challenging game.
We’ve just shown 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 done as well against them. That’s likely the test of the group - rising to the expectation of each game rather than just the big games."
Player Situation
The midfielder has will not be staying at Aston Villa, an update that was revealed by the manager Emery in the lead-up to this match. The boss said:
"We respect him as much as possible because he’s a very good professional, very respectful. The problem we have with Harvey is this year he is on loan 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 need."
Season Snapshot
How times change. This time last year Nottingham 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 charged with keeping the club in the Premier League this season. Since being appointed on 21 October, Dyche has accumulated 10 Premier League points and the side are just outside the bottom three with 19 games of the season remaining.
