Villa versus Forest: Premier League Build-Up
Introduction
Greetings and welcome to this Premier League fixture between Aston Villa and Forest. Villa will be the expected winners to win in this early kick-off as they are flying this season and are currently sitting third, while Forest are seventeenth and just a handful of points outside of the relegation zone.
The two teams are entering the game on the back of a setback as Villa were defeated 4-1 by league-leading Arsenal and Forest lost 2-0 to Everton.
This promises to be a tough task for Forest to secure all three points with Villa possessing one of the best home records in Europe at the moment and they also recorded a club record of 36 wins across all competitions this season. But maybe it’s new year, new story? All will become clear very soon.
The confirmed XIs will be announced shortly before kick-off at 12.30pm GMT.
Confirmed Lineups
The team news is in. The Villa boss has made four changes to his starting XI who lost 4-1 to Arsenal in their previous match.
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 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.
Dugout Insights
Nottingham Forest manager Sean Dyche has remarked on his counterpart today:
"Emery has delivered a great job as a manager there. Their transfer business has been good - invested a lot of money, to be fair, on some excellent players and they’ve forged it into a cohesive team, so certainly a difficult game.
We’ve just shown lately, we’ve played against some of the bigger teams, or the ones that are tipped every year, and performed admirably against them - and a couple of teams maybe not as highly-rated, we haven’t done as well against them. That’s probably the test of the group - rising to the expectation of each game rather than just the major fixtures."
Squad News
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:
"We respect him as much as possible because he’s a excellent professional, very respectful. The situation we have with Harvey is this year he is on loan and if he is featuring regularly, we are obligated to buy him. We decided two months ago we are not persuaded to make the move permanent, committing the money we need."
League Context
The tables have turned. This time last year Nottingham Forest were third in the table, where Aston Villa are now. A lot of things have changed, including the manager on two occasions and the current boss is charged with keeping the club in the top-flight this season. Since being named manager on 21 October, Dyche has accumulated 10 Premier League points and the side are just above the bottom three with 19 games of the season remaining.
