Villa versus Forest: Premier League Build-Up
Introduction
Hello and welcome to this Premier League encounter between Aston Villa and Forest. Villa will be the favourites to win in this lunchtime start as they are soaring this season and are currently sitting third, while Forest are seventeenth and just a handful of points outside of the relegation zone.
Both clubs are coming into the game following a defeat as Villa were beaten 4-1 by top-of-the-table Arsenal and Forest succumbed 2-0 to Everton.
This shapes up as a challenging task for Sean Dyche’s side to obtain all three points with Villa having one of the best home forms in Europe at the moment and they also achieved a team record of 36 wins across all competitions this season. But maybe it’s a new year and a new narrative? The answer will be revealed very soon.
The confirmed XIs will drop shortly before kick-off at 12.30pm GMT.
Confirmed Lineups
The lineups have been confirmed. The Villa boss has made a quartet of alterations to his starting lineup who were defeated by 4-1 to Arsenal last time out.
Aston 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 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.
Substitutes: Sels, Morato, Awoniyi, Luiz, Kalimuendo, McAtee, Zinchenko, Savona, Abbott.
Manager Comments
Nottingham Forest manager Sean Dyche has remarked on his counterpart today:
"He’s [Unai Emery] done a excellent job as a manager there. Their recruitment has been impressive - spent a lot of money, to be fair, on some top players and they’ve forged it into a cohesive team, so definitely a difficult game.
We’ve just shown lately, we’ve played against some of the bigger teams, or the ones that are favoured every year, and held our own 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 - meeting the challenge of each game rather than just the big games."
Player Situation
Harvey Elliott has will not be staying at Aston Villa, an update that was confirmed by the manager Emery in the lead-up to this match. The boss stated:
"We respect him all we can because he’s a very good professional, very dedicated. The problem we have with Harvey is this year he is a loan player 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, committing the money we would need to."
Season Snapshot
How times change. This time last year Forest were in third place in the table, where Villa are now. A lot of things have shifted, including the manager on two occasions and Sean Dyche is tasked with keeping the club in the Premier League this season. Since being named manager on 21 October, Dyche has secured 10 Premier League points and the side are just above the bottom three with 19 games of the season remaining.
