Aston Villa v Forest: Premier League Match Preview
Opening Thoughts
Hello and welcome to this Premier League fixture between Aston Villa and Nottingham Forest. Aston Villa are the strong favourites to win in this lunchtime start as they are soaring this season and are currently sitting third, while Nottingham Forest are 17th and just a handful of points outside of the drop zone.
The two teams are entering the game on the back of a loss as Villa were overcome 4-1 by league-leading Arsenal and Forest fell 2-0 to Everton.
This shapes up as a tough 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 recorded a team record of 36 wins across all competitions this season. But maybe it’s new year, new story? All will become clear very soon.
The team news will drop shortly before kick-off at 12.30pm GMT.
Starting Elevens
The team news is in. The Villa boss has made four changes to his first eleven who lost 4-1 to Arsenal last time out.
Aston 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 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.
Substitutes: Sels, Morato, Awoniyi, Luiz, Kalimuendo, McAtee, Zinchenko, Savona, Abbott.
Pre-Match Quotes
Forest boss Sean Dyche has said on his opponent today:
"He has done a fantastic job as a manager there. Their recruitment has been impressive - invested a lot of money, to be fair, on some top players and they’ve forged it into a good unit, so certainly a difficult game.
We’ve just demonstrated lately, we’ve played against some of the bigger teams, or the ones that are favoured every year, and performed admirably against them - and a couple of teams maybe not as fancied, we haven’t done as well against them. That’s likely the test of the group - rising to the expectation of each game rather than just the major fixtures."
Transfer Update
The midfielder has no future at Aston Villa, an update that was confirmed by the manager Emery in the build-up to this match. The boss stated:
"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 a loan player and if he is featuring regularly, we are obligated to buy him. We decided two months ago we are not convinced to make the move permanent, committing the money we would need to."
League Context
How times change. This time last year Forest were third in the table, where Villa are now. A lot of things have changed, including the manager twice and the current boss is tasked with keeping the club in the top-flight this season. Since being appointed on 21 October, Dyche has accumulated 10 Premier League points and the side are just outside the relegation zone with 19 games of the season to go.
