Aston Villa versus Forest: Premier League Build-Up
Opening Thoughts
Welcome everyone to this English top-flight encounter between Villa and Nottingham Forest. Villa will be the favourites to win in this lunchtime start as they are flying this season and are currently in third, while Nottingham Forest are seventeenth and just a handful of points outside of the drop zone.
Each side are entering the game on the back of a setback as Villa were overcome 4-1 by league-leading Arsenal and Forest succumbed 2-0 to Everton.
This shapes up as a difficult task for Forest 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 maybe it’s new year, new story? The answer will be revealed very soon.
The confirmed XIs will be announced shortly before the start at 12.30pm GMT.
Team News
The team news is in. The Villa boss has made a quartet of alterations to his first eleven who were defeated by 4-1 to Arsenal last time around.
Aston 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 adjustments to their starting squad after a 2-0 defeat 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.
Pre-Match Quotes
Forest boss Sean Dyche has said on his counterpart today:
"He has done a great job as a manager there. Their transfer business has been impressive - 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 demonstrated lately, we’ve taken on some of the top sides, or the ones that are fancied every year, and performed admirably against them - and a couple of teams maybe not as highly-rated, we struggled more against them. That’s likely the test of the group - meeting the expectation of each game rather than just the major fixtures."
Transfer Update
The midfielder has no future at Aston Villa, news that was revealed by the manager Unai Emery in the build-up to this match. The boss stated:
"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 must buy him. We decided two months ago we are not convinced to make the move permanent, committing the money we need."
Form Guide
What a difference a year makes. This time last year Forest were in third place in the table, where Aston Villa are now. A lot of things have altered, including the manager on two occasions and Sean Dyche 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 above the relegation zone with 19 games of the season to go.
