Villa against Nottingham Forest: Top-Flight Preview
Introduction
Hello and welcome to this English top-flight encounter between Villa and Nottingham Forest. Aston Villa are the expected winners to win in this early kick-off as they are soaring this season and are currently sitting third, while Nottingham Forest are seventeenth and just a handful of points outside of the drop zone.
Each side are entering the game off of the back of a defeat as Villa were defeated 4-1 by league-leading Arsenal and Forest succumbed 2-0 to Everton.
It will be a challenging task for Forest to obtain all three points with Villa possessing one of the best home records in Europe at the moment and they also recorded a team record of 36 wins across all competitions this season. But perhaps it’s a new year and a new narrative? The answer will be revealed very soon.
The team news will be announced shortly before the start at 12.30pm GMT.
Starting Elevens
The team news is in. The Villa boss has made four changes to his starting XI who lost 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.
Nottingham Forest have also made four adjustments 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.
Dugout Insights
Forest boss Sean Dyche has remarked on his counterpart today:
"He has done a great job as a manager there. Their recruitment has been impressive - invested a lot of money, to be fair, on some excellent players and they’ve moulded it into a cohesive team, so certainly a difficult game.
We’ve just shown lately, we’ve faced some of the bigger teams, or the ones that are fancied 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 challenge of the group - rising to the challenge of each game rather than just the big games."
Transfer Update
Harvey Elliott has will not be staying at Aston Villa, news that was confirmed 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 excellent professional, very respectful. The situation we have with Harvey is this year he is a loan player and if he is playing matches, 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."
League Context
What a difference a year makes. This time last year Nottingham Forest were third in the table, where Aston Villa are now. A lot of things have shifted, 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 bottom three with 19 games of the season remaining.
