Villa v Nottingham Forest: Premier League Build-Up
Preamble
Greetings and welcome to this Premier League clash between Villa and Forest. The home side are the strong favourites to win in this early kick-off as they are excelling this season and are currently occupying third place, while Nottingham Forest are 17th and just a handful of points outside of the relegation zone.
Each side are entering the game off of the back of a loss as Villa were defeated 4-1 by top-of-the-table Arsenal and Forest fell 2-0 to Everton.
This promises to be a tough task for the visitors to secure all three points with Villa possessing one of the best home forms in Europe at the moment and they also achieved a club 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 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 XI 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.
Nottingham Forest have also made four adjustments to their matchday 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
Forest boss Sean Dyche has said on his opponent today:
"Emery has delivered a great job as a manager there. Their transfer business has been impressive - spent a lot of money, to be fair, on some top players and they’ve moulded it into a cohesive team, so certainly a tough game.
We’ve just shown lately, we’ve faced some of the larger clubs, or the ones that are favoured every year, and performed admirably against them - and a couple of teams maybe not as highly-rated, we struggled more against them. That’s probably the test of the group - rising to the challenge of each game rather than just the big games."
Transfer Update
The midfielder has no future at Aston Villa, news that was confirmed by the manager Emery in the lead-up to this match. The boss commented:
"We respect him all we can because he’s a excellent professional, very dedicated. The problem we have with Harvey is this year he is on loan 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 need."
Season Snapshot
What a difference a year makes. This time last year Nottingham Forest were in third place in the table, where Aston Villa are now. A lot of things have changed, including the manager twice and Sean Dyche is charged 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 relegation zone with 19 games of the season to go.
