Aston Villa versus Forest: Premier League Preview
Introduction
Greetings and welcome to this Premier League encounter between Aston Villa and Forest. The home side are the expected winners to win in this early kick-off as they are flying this season and are currently occupying third place, while Forest are in 17th position and just a handful of points outside of the drop zone.
The two teams are coming into the game off of the back of a loss 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 secure all three points with Villa having one of the best home records in Europe at the moment and they also set a club 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 drop shortly before kick-off at 12.30pm GMT.
Confirmed Lineups
The starting XIs have been announced. Unai Emery has made a quartet of alterations to his starting XI who lost 4-1 to Arsenal last time out.
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 starting squad after a 2-0 loss 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.
Dugout Insights
Forest boss Sean Dyche has remarked on his opponent today:
"Emery has delivered a great job as a manager there. Their signings has been impressive - spent a lot of money, to be fair, on some excellent players and they’ve forged it into a strong side, so definitely a difficult game.
We’ve just shown lately, we’ve taken on some of the top sides, or the ones that are favoured every year, and done very well against them - and a couple of teams maybe not as fancied, we haven’t done as well against them. That’s likely the test of the group - meeting the challenge of each game rather than just the major fixtures."
Transfer Update
The midfielder has will not be staying at Aston Villa, an update that was stated by the manager Unai Emery in the build-up to this match. The boss stated:
"We respect him all we can because he’s a excellent professional, very dedicated. The issue we have with Harvey is this year he is a loan player and if he is featuring regularly, we are obligated to buy him. We made the decision two months ago we are not convinced to sign him, spending the money we need."
Form Guide
How times change. 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 twice and Sean Dyche is charged with keeping the club in the Premier League this season. Since being named manager 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.