Aston Villa versus Nottingham Forest: Premier League Match Preview
Opening Thoughts
Hello and welcome to this Premier League clash between Aston Villa and Nottingham Forest. The home side are the expected winners to win in this lunchtime start as they are flying this season and are currently in third, while Forest are seventeenth and just four points outside of the drop zone.
Each side are entering the game following a loss as Villa were beaten 4-1 by top-of-the-table Arsenal and Forest lost 2-0 to Everton.
This shapes up as a difficult task for the visitors to secure 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? All will become clear very soon.
The confirmed XIs will drop shortly before the start at 12.30pm GMT.
Confirmed Lineups
The lineups have been confirmed. The Villa boss has made four changes to his first eleven 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 likewise 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.
Substitutes: Sels, Morato, Awoniyi, Luiz, Kalimuendo, McAtee, Zinchenko, Savona, Abbott.
Pre-Match Quotes
Forest boss Sean Dyche has commented on his counterpart today:
"Emery has delivered a excellent job as a manager there. Their signings has been strong - invested a lot of money, to be fair, on some top players and they’ve moulded it into a good unit, so certainly a tough game.
We’ve just demonstrated lately, we’ve faced some of the top sides, or the ones that are tipped every year, and held our own against them - and a couple of teams perhaps not as highly-rated, we struggled more against them. That’s probably 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, news that was revealed by the manager Emery in the build-up to this match. The boss stated:
"We respect him as much as possible 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 are obligated to buy him. We decided two months ago we are not convinced to sign him, spending the money we need."
Season Snapshot
How times change. This time last year Nottingham 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 named manager on 21 October, Dyche has secured 10 Premier League points and the side are just outside the bottom three with 19 games of the season remaining.
