Aston Villa v Nottingham Forest: Premier League Preview
Opening Thoughts
Welcome everyone to this Premier League encounter between Aston Villa and Nottingham Forest. Villa will be the expected winners to win in this early kick-off as they are excelling this season and are currently in third, while Nottingham Forest are seventeenth and just a handful of points outside of the drop zone.
Each side are entering the game off of the back of a loss as Villa were overcome 4-1 by league-leading Arsenal and Forest lost 2-0 to Everton.
It will be a tough task for the visitors to secure all three points with Villa boasting one of the best home forms in Europe at the moment and they also achieved a club record of 36 wins across all competitions this season. But maybe it’s new year, new story? All will become clear very soon.
The confirmed XIs will be released shortly before the start at 12.30pm GMT.
Confirmed Lineups
The lineups have been confirmed. Unai Emery has made four changes to his starting lineup who were defeated by 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.
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.
Pre-Match Quotes
Forest boss Sean Dyche has commented on his opponent today:
"He has done a fantastic job as a manager there. Their signings has been impressive - spent a lot of money, to be fair, on some top players and they’ve moulded it into a good unit, so certainly a tough game.
We’ve just demonstrated lately, we’ve played against some of the bigger teams, or the ones that are favoured every year, and performed admirably against them - and a couple of teams maybe not as highly-rated, we haven’t done as well against them. That’s probably the test of the group - rising to the challenge of each game rather than just the big games."
Squad News
The midfielder has will not be staying at Aston Villa, news that was stated by the manager Emery in the lead-up to this match. The boss commented:
"We respect him as much as possible because he’s a top professional, very respectful. The problem we have with Harvey is this year he is a loan player and if he is featuring regularly, we must buy him. We decided two months ago we are not convinced to sign him, spending the money we need."
League Context
What a difference a year makes. This time last year Nottingham Forest were in third place 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 won 10 Premier League points and the side are just above the bottom three with 19 games of the season to go.
