Aston Villa v Forest: Premier League Match Preview
Preamble
Hello and welcome to this Premier League clash between Villa and Nottingham Forest. The home side are the expected winners to win in this early kick-off as they are excelling this season and are currently sitting third, while Nottingham Forest are in 17th position and just four points outside of the drop zone.
Both clubs are entering the game off of the back of a defeat as Villa were defeated 4-1 by top-of-the-table Arsenal and Forest fell 2-0 to Everton.
This promises to be a challenging task for Sean Dyche’s side to come away with all three points with Villa having 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 perhaps it’s a new year and a new narrative? We will find out very soon.
The starting lineups will be announced shortly before kick-off at 12.30pm GMT.
Confirmed Lineups
The starting XIs have been announced. The Villa boss has made a quartet of alterations to his starting XI who lost 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.
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 opponent today:
"He’s [Unai Emery] done a fantastic job as a manager there. Their signings has been strong - spent a lot of money, to be fair, on some excellent players and they’ve forged it into a good unit, so certainly a difficult game.
We’ve just shown lately, we’ve played against some of the larger clubs, or the ones that are tipped every year, and done very well against them - and a couple of teams maybe not as highly-rated, we haven't performed as strongly against them. That’s probably the challenge of the group - rising to the challenge of each game rather than just the major fixtures."
Transfer Update
The midfielder has no future at Aston Villa, news that was stated by the manager Unai Emery in the lead-up to this match. The boss said:
"I am respecting him all we can because he’s a very good professional, very respectful. The issue 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 make the move permanent, spending 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 tasked with keeping the club in the Premier League this season. Since being named manager on 21 October, Dyche has won 10 Premier League points and the side are just above the bottom three with 19 games of the season remaining.
