Aston Villa against Forest: Premier League Build-Up
Preamble
Hello and welcome to this English top-flight clash between Villa and Forest. Aston Villa are the expected winners to win in this early kick-off as they are soaring this season and are currently occupying third place, while Nottingham Forest are 17th and just four points outside of the drop zone.
The two teams are coming into the game on the back of a defeat as Villa were overcome 4-1 by top-of-the-table Arsenal and Forest lost 2-0 to Everton.
This shapes up as a difficult task for the visitors to obtain all three points with Villa possessing one of the best home records in Europe at the moment and they also recorded a club 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 team news will be released shortly before kick-off at 12.30pm GMT.
Starting Elevens
The starting XIs have been announced. 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.
Bench: Bizot, Digne, Sancho, Garcia, Carroll, Bogarde, Hemmings, Malen, Jimoh-Aloba.
Nottingham 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
Forest boss Sean Dyche has commented on his counterpart today:
"Emery has delivered a great job as a manager there. Their transfer business has been impressive - invested a lot of money, to be fair, on some top players and they’ve moulded it into a cohesive team, so certainly a difficult game.
We’ve just shown lately, we’ve faced some of the top sides, or the ones that are tipped every year, and performed admirably against them - and a couple of teams perhaps not as fancied, we haven't performed as strongly against them. That’s likely the test of the group - meeting the expectation of each game rather than just the major fixtures."
Player Situation
The midfielder has no future at Aston Villa, news that was revealed by the manager Unai Emery in the build-up to this match. The boss said:
"We respect him as much as possible because he’s a top professional, very respectful. The situation we have with Harvey is this year he is a loan player and if he is featuring regularly, we are obligated to buy him. We decided 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 Villa are now. A lot of things have shifted, including the manager twice and the current boss is charged with keeping the club in the top-flight this season. Since being named manager on 21 October, Dyche has won 10 Premier League points and the side are just outside the relegation zone with 19 games of the season remaining.
