Villa v Forest: Premier League Match Preview
Opening Thoughts
Greetings and welcome to this Premier League encounter between Aston Villa and Forest. The home side are the favourites to win in this early kick-off as they are soaring this season and are currently sitting third, while Forest are seventeenth and just a handful of points outside of the relegation zone.
The two teams are entering the game following a loss as Villa were beaten 4-1 by league-leading Arsenal and Forest succumbed 2-0 to Everton.
This shapes up as a challenging 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 achieved a club record of 36 wins across all competitions this season. But perhaps it’s a new year and a new narrative? We will find out very soon.
The starting lineups will be released shortly before kick-off at 12.30pm GMT.
Confirmed Lineups
The starting XIs have been announced. Unai Emery has made a quartet of alterations to his starting XI who lost 4-1 to Arsenal last time out.
Aston Villa: Martinez, Cash, Konsa, Lindelof, Maatsen, Kamara, Tielemans, McGinn, Buendia, Rogers, Watkins.
Bench: Bizot, Digne, Sancho, Garcia, Carroll, Bogarde, Hemmings, Malen, Jimoh-Aloba.
Forest have likewise made four changes to their matchday 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.
Pre-Match Quotes
Nottingham Forest manager Sean Dyche has remarked on his counterpart today:
"Emery has delivered a great job as a manager there. Their recruitment has been impressive - spent a lot of money, to be fair, on some very good players and they’ve forged it into a cohesive team, so certainly a difficult game.
We’ve just demonstrated lately, we’ve faced 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 struggled more against them. That’s likely the challenge of the group - rising to the expectation 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 Unai Emery in the build-up to this match. The boss commented:
"I am respecting him all we can because he’s a top professional, very respectful. The issue we have with Harvey is this year he is on loan and if he is playing matches, we must buy him. We made the decision two months ago we are not convinced to sign him, committing the money we need."
League Context
What a difference a year makes. This time last year Forest were in third place in the table, where Aston 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 named manager on 21 October, Dyche has secured 10 Premier League points and the side are just above the relegation zone with 19 games of the season to go.
