Villa v Nottingham Forest: Premier League Match Preview
Preamble
Welcome everyone to this Premier League fixture between Aston Villa and Nottingham Forest. Villa will be the favourites to win in this lunchtime start as they are excelling this season and are currently in third, while Nottingham Forest are seventeenth and just four points outside of the drop zone.
The two teams are coming into the game on the back of a defeat as Villa were beaten 4-1 by league-leading Arsenal and Forest lost 2-0 to Everton.
It will be a difficult task for Sean Dyche’s side to secure all three points with Villa having one of the best home forms in Europe at the moment and they also set a club record of 36 wins across all competitions this season. But maybe it’s new year, new story? The answer will be revealed very soon.
The starting lineups will be released shortly before kick-off at 12.30pm GMT.
Confirmed Lineups
The lineups have been confirmed. The Villa boss has made four changes to his starting lineup who lost 4-1 to Arsenal last time around.
Villa: Martinez, Cash, Konsa, Lindelof, Maatsen, Kamara, Tielemans, McGinn, Buendia, Rogers, Watkins.
Substitutes: Bizot, Digne, Sancho, Garcia, Carroll, Bogarde, Hemmings, Malen, Jimoh-Aloba.
Nottingham Forest have also made four changes to their starting squad after a 2-0 loss to Everton.
Nottingham 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 commented on his counterpart today:
"He has done a great job as a manager there. Their transfer business has been strong - spent a lot of money, to be fair, on some excellent players and they’ve moulded it into a cohesive team, so definitely a difficult game.
We’ve just demonstrated lately, we’ve faced some of the top sides, or the ones that are favoured every year, and performed admirably against them - and a couple of teams perhaps not as highly-rated, we haven’t done as well against them. That’s probably the challenge of the group - meeting the challenge of each game rather than just the big games."
Transfer Update
The midfielder has no future at Aston Villa, an update that was confirmed by the manager Unai 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 problem 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 decided two months ago we are not convinced to make the move permanent, spending 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 altered, including the manager on two occasions and the current boss is charged 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.
