Aston Villa versus Nottingham Forest: Premier League Build-Up
Introduction
Welcome everyone to this Premier League clash between Villa and Nottingham Forest. The home side are the expected winners to win in this lunchtime start as they are excelling this season and are currently in third, while Nottingham Forest are in 17th position and just four points outside of the relegation zone.
Each side are entering the game on the back of a loss as Villa were defeated 4-1 by top-of-the-table Arsenal and Forest succumbed 2-0 to Everton.
This shapes up as a difficult task for Forest to come away with all three points with Villa possessing one of the best home forms in Europe at the moment and they also recorded a team 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 released shortly before the start at 12.30pm GMT.
Confirmed Lineups
The team news is in. The Villa boss has made a quartet of alterations to his starting lineup who were defeated by 4-1 to Arsenal in their previous match.
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 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.
Bench: Sels, Morato, Awoniyi, Luiz, Kalimuendo, McAtee, Zinchenko, Savona, Abbott.
Manager Comments
Nottingham Forest manager Sean Dyche has remarked on his opponent today:
"He has done a excellent job as a manager there. Their signings has been impressive - invested a lot of money, to be fair, on some top players and they’ve forged it into a good unit, so certainly a challenging game.
We’ve just demonstrated lately, we’ve taken on some of the bigger teams, or the ones that are fancied every year, and held our own against them - and a couple of teams perhaps not as highly-rated, 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."
Transfer Update
Harvey Elliott has will not be staying at Aston Villa, news that was revealed by the manager Emery in the build-up to this match. The boss stated:
"We respect him all we can because he’s a top professional, very respectful. The situation 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 make the move permanent, committing the money we need."
League Context
How times change. This time last year Nottingham Forest were in third place in the table, where Villa are now. A lot of things have shifted, including the manager twice and the current boss is charged 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 outside the bottom three with 19 games of the season remaining.