Aston Villa against Forest: Top-Flight Build-Up
Introduction
Welcome everyone to this English top-flight encounter between Aston Villa and Nottingham Forest. Aston Villa are the favourites to win in this lunchtime start as they are soaring this season and are currently sitting third, while Nottingham Forest are 17th and just a handful of points outside of the drop zone.
Each side are entering the game on the back of a setback as Villa were overcome 4-1 by league-leading Arsenal and Forest succumbed 2-0 to Everton.
This shapes up as a challenging 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 team record of 36 wins across all competitions this season. But maybe it’s new year, new story? The answer will be revealed very soon.
The confirmed XIs will be released shortly before kick-off at 12.30pm GMT.
Starting Elevens
The starting XIs have been announced. The Villa boss has made four changes to his starting XI who lost 4-1 to Arsenal last time around.
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 also 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.
Substitutes: Sels, Morato, Awoniyi, Luiz, Kalimuendo, McAtee, Zinchenko, Savona, Abbott.
Dugout Insights
Forest boss Sean Dyche has said on his opponent today:
"He’s [Unai Emery] done a excellent job as a manager there. Their transfer business has been impressive - invested a lot of money, to be fair, on some very good players and they’ve forged it into a good unit, so certainly a challenging game.
We’ve just demonstrated lately, we’ve played against some of the larger clubs, or the ones that are fancied every year, and done very well against them - and a couple of teams perhaps not as highly-rated, we haven't performed as strongly against them. That’s likely the challenge of the group - meeting the expectation of each game rather than just the big games."
Transfer Update
The midfielder has will not be staying at Aston Villa, an update that was revealed by the manager Unai Emery in the lead-up to this match. The boss commented:
"We respect him all we can 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 made the decision two months ago we are not persuaded to sign him, spending the money we need."
Form Guide
The tables have turned. This time last year 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 named manager on 21 October, Dyche has secured 10 Premier League points and the side are just outside the relegation zone with 19 games of the season to go.