Villa against Forest: Premier League Build-Up
Preamble
Welcome everyone to this Premier League clash between Villa and Nottingham Forest. Villa will be the strong favourites to win in this lunchtime start as they are flying this season and are currently in third, while Forest are seventeenth and just a handful of points outside of the drop zone.
Each side are entering the game following a loss as Villa were beaten 4-1 by top-of-the-table Arsenal and Forest fell 2-0 to Everton.
It will be a challenging task for Sean Dyche’s side to obtain all three points with Villa boasting one of the best home records in Europe at the moment and they also recorded a team record of 36 wins across all competitions this season. But maybe it’s a new year and a new narrative? We will find out very soon.
The team news will be announced shortly before the start at 12.30pm GMT.
Starting Elevens
The lineups have been confirmed. Unai Emery has made a quartet of alterations to his starting XI who lost 4-1 to Arsenal in their previous match.
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 also made four changes 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.
Dugout Insights
Nottingham Forest manager Sean Dyche has said on his counterpart today:
"He’s [Unai Emery] done a fantastic job as a manager there. Their transfer business has been strong - invested a lot of money, to be fair, on some top players and they’ve forged it into a strong side, so certainly a difficult game.
We’ve just shown lately, we’ve played against some of the larger clubs, or the ones that are favoured 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 test of the group - meeting the expectation of each game rather than just the major fixtures."
Squad News
Harvey Elliott has will not be staying at Aston Villa, news that was stated by the manager Emery in the build-up to this match. The boss stated:
"We respect him as much as possible because he’s a top professional, very dedicated. The situation we have with Harvey is this year he is a loan player and if he is playing matches, we must buy him. We decided two months ago we are not persuaded to sign him, spending the money we would need to."
League Context
The tables have turned. This time last year Forest were third in the table, where Aston Villa are now. A lot of things have shifted, including the manager on two occasions and the current boss is charged with keeping the club in the Premier League 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 remaining.
