Aston Villa v Nottingham Forest: Top-Flight Build-Up
Introduction
Welcome everyone to this English top-flight clash between Villa and Forest. Aston Villa are the expected winners to win in this lunchtime start as they are flying this season and are currently in third, while Forest are 17th and just a handful of points outside of the relegation zone.
Both clubs are coming into the game off of the back of a loss as Villa were beaten 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 come away with all three points with Villa possessing 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 drop shortly before the start at 12.30pm GMT.
Team News
The starting XIs have been announced. The Villa boss has made four changes to his starting XI who lost 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.
Forest have likewise made four changes to their starting squad after a 2-0 loss 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.
Pre-Match Quotes
Nottingham Forest manager Sean Dyche has remarked on his counterpart today:
"He has done a excellent job as a manager there. Their signings has been good - invested a lot of money, to be fair, on some top players and they’ve shaped it into a strong side, so definitely a tough game.
We’ve just demonstrated lately, we’ve played against some of the top sides, 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 test of the group - meeting the expectation of each game rather than just the major fixtures."
Transfer Update
Harvey Elliott has no future at Aston Villa, an update that was revealed by the manager Emery in the lead-up to this match. The boss stated:
"We respect him as much as possible because he’s a very good professional, very dedicated. 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 decided two months ago we are not convinced to sign him, spending the money we would need to."
League Context
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 changed, including the manager on two occasions and the current boss is tasked with keeping the club in the top-flight 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 remaining.
