Villa v Forest: Top-Flight Build-Up
Introduction
Greetings and welcome to this English top-flight encounter between Aston Villa and Forest. The home side are the strong favourites to win in this lunchtime start as they are flying this season and are currently occupying third place, while Forest are seventeenth and just four points outside of the relegation zone.
The two teams are coming into the game on the back of a defeat as Villa were defeated 4-1 by league-leading Arsenal and Forest lost 2-0 to Everton.
This shapes up as a tough task for Sean Dyche’s side to secure all three points with Villa boasting one of the best home records in Europe at the moment and they also achieved a team 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 team news will be announced shortly before kick-off 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 last time out.
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 also made four changes 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.
Bench: 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 excellent job as a manager there. Their recruitment has been impressive - invested a lot of money, to be fair, on some very good players and they’ve moulded it into a strong side, so certainly a tough game.
We’ve just shown lately, we’ve played against 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 haven't performed as strongly against them. That’s probably the challenge of the group - rising to the expectation of each game rather than just the big games."
Squad News
Harvey Elliott has no future at Aston Villa, an update that was revealed by the manager Emery in the build-up to this match. The boss stated:
"I am respecting him all we can because he’s a very good professional, very respectful. The problem we have with Harvey is this year he is on loan and if he is playing matches, we must buy him. We made the decision two months ago we are not convinced to make the move permanent, spending 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 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 appointed on 21 October, Dyche has won 10 Premier League points and the side are just above the bottom three with 19 games of the season remaining.
