Aston Villa v Nottingham Forest: Top-Flight Build-Up
Opening Thoughts
Welcome everyone to this English top-flight clash between Villa and Forest. The home side are the strong favourites to win in this early kick-off as they are excelling this season and are currently in third, while Forest are 17th and just a handful of points outside of the relegation zone.
Both clubs are coming into the game off of the back of a setback as Villa were defeated 4-1 by top-of-the-table Arsenal and Forest succumbed 2-0 to Everton.
It will be a challenging task for the visitors to obtain all three points with Villa having 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 a new year and a new narrative? All will become clear very soon.
The confirmed XIs will be announced shortly before the start at 12.30pm GMT.
Confirmed Lineups
The lineups have been confirmed. Unai Emery has made a quartet of alterations to his starting lineup who were defeated by 4-1 to Arsenal last time around.
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 also made four changes to their starting 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.
Manager Comments
Nottingham Forest manager Sean Dyche has said on his opponent today:
"Emery has delivered a fantastic job as a manager there. Their recruitment has been good - spent a lot of money, to be fair, on some top players and they’ve shaped it into a cohesive team, so certainly a tough game.
We’ve just shown lately, we’ve taken on some of the top sides, or the ones that are favoured every year, and held our own against them - and a couple of teams maybe not as fancied, we struggled more against them. That’s likely the challenge of the group - rising to the expectation of each game rather than just the major fixtures."
Transfer Update
Harvey Elliott has no future at Aston Villa, an update that was revealed by the manager Unai Emery in the build-up to this match. The boss stated:
"I am respecting him all we can 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 must buy him. We made the decision two months ago we are not convinced to make the move permanent, spending the money we need."
Form Guide
How times change. 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 on two occasions and the current boss is tasked 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 above the relegation zone with 19 games of the season remaining.
