Villa versus Forest: Premier League Preview
Preamble
Greetings and welcome to this Premier League clash between Aston Villa and Forest. The home side are the expected winners to win in this early kick-off as they are soaring this season and are currently in third, while Forest are 17th and just a handful of points outside of the drop zone.
Both clubs are entering the game off of the back of a loss as Villa were beaten 4-1 by league-leading Arsenal and Forest fell 2-0 to Everton.
It will be a tough task for Forest to obtain all three points with Villa boasting one of the best home records in Europe at the moment and they also recorded a club record of 36 wins across all competitions this season. But perhaps it’s new year, new story? All will become clear very soon.
The team news will be released shortly before the start at 12.30pm GMT.
Starting Elevens
The starting XIs have been announced. The Villa boss has made four changes to his first eleven who were defeated by 4-1 to Arsenal last time out.
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 likewise made four adjustments to their matchday squad after a 2-0 defeat 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.
Manager Comments
Forest boss Sean Dyche has said on his counterpart today:
"Emery has delivered a fantastic job as a manager there. Their transfer business has been good - spent a lot of money, to be fair, on some excellent players and they’ve forged it into a cohesive team, so certainly a tough game.
We’ve just demonstrated lately, we’ve faced some of the top sides, or the ones that are fancied every year, and performed admirably against them - and a couple of teams maybe not as fancied, we struggled more against them. That’s likely the challenge of the group - rising to the challenge of each game rather than just the major fixtures."
Transfer Update
Harvey Elliott has no future at Aston Villa, an update that was revealed by the manager Emery in the lead-up to this match. The boss commented:
"We respect him all we can because he’s a top professional, very dedicated. The issue we have with Harvey is this year he is on loan and if he is featuring regularly, we must buy him. We made the decision two months ago we are not persuaded to make the move permanent, spending the money we need."
Form Guide
The tables have turned. 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 accumulated 10 Premier League points and the side are just outside the bottom three with 19 games of the season to go.
