Aston Villa v Nottingham Forest: Top-Flight Build-Up
Introduction
Hello and welcome to this English top-flight clash between Villa and Forest. The home side are the expected winners to win in this early kick-off as they are excelling this season and are currently occupying third place, while Nottingham Forest are seventeenth and just four points outside of the drop zone.
The two teams are coming into the game following a defeat as Villa were defeated 4-1 by league-leading Arsenal and Forest succumbed 2-0 to Everton.
This shapes up as a challenging task for the visitors to obtain 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 perhaps it’s new year, new story? The answer will be revealed very soon.
The team news will drop shortly before kick-off at 12.30pm GMT.
Team News
The starting XIs have been announced. The Villa boss has made four changes to his starting lineup who were defeated by 4-1 to Arsenal last time around.
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 loss 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.
Manager Comments
Forest boss Sean Dyche has commented on his opponent today:
"Emery has delivered a excellent job as a manager there. Their signings has been good - invested a lot of money, to be fair, on some top players and they’ve shaped it into a cohesive team, so definitely a tough game.
We’ve just shown 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 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."
Transfer Update
Harvey Elliott has will not be staying at Aston Villa, an update that was confirmed by the manager Unai Emery in the build-up to this match. The boss commented:
"I am respecting him as much as possible because he’s a top professional, very dedicated. The issue we have with Harvey is this year he is on loan and if he is featuring regularly, we must buy him. We made the decision two months ago we are not convinced to make the move permanent, spending the money we need."
Season Snapshot
What a difference a year makes. This time last year Forest were third in the table, where Aston Villa are now. A lot of things have changed, including the manager twice and Sean Dyche is tasked with keeping the club in the top-flight 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 to go.
