Aston Villa against Forest: Premier League Build-Up
Preamble
Greetings and welcome to this Premier League fixture between Aston Villa and Nottingham Forest. Villa will be the favourites to win in this early kick-off as they are flying this season and are currently sitting third, while Nottingham Forest are seventeenth and just four points outside of the drop zone.
Both clubs are coming into the game following a defeat as Villa were overcome 4-1 by top-of-the-table Arsenal and Forest fell 2-0 to Everton.
This shapes up as a challenging task for Forest to come away with all three points with Villa boasting 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 perhaps it’s new year, new story? We will find out very soon.
The confirmed XIs will drop shortly before kick-off at 12.30pm GMT.
Confirmed Lineups
The lineups have been confirmed. The Villa boss has made four changes to his starting XI 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.
Nottingham Forest have likewise 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.
Bench: Sels, Morato, Awoniyi, Luiz, Kalimuendo, McAtee, Zinchenko, Savona, Abbott.
Pre-Match Quotes
Forest boss Sean Dyche has said on his opponent today:
"He’s [Unai Emery] done a great job as a manager there. Their recruitment has been good - spent a lot of money, to be fair, on some excellent players and they’ve forged it into a strong side, so certainly a challenging game.
We’ve just demonstrated lately, we’ve played against some of the top sides, or the ones that are tipped every year, and done very well against them - and a couple of teams perhaps not as fancied, we haven't performed as strongly against them. That’s probably the challenge of the group - meeting the expectation of each game rather than just the big games."
Squad News
The midfielder has no future at Aston Villa, an update that was confirmed by the manager Unai Emery in the build-up to this match. The boss said:
"I am respecting him as much as possible because he’s a very good professional, very dedicated. The issue 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 persuaded to sign him, committing the money we would need to."
Form Guide
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 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 won 10 Premier League points and the side are just above the relegation zone with 19 games of the season to go.
