Aston Villa versus Forest: Top-Flight Build-Up
Introduction
Greetings and welcome to this English top-flight encounter between Villa and Nottingham Forest. The home side are the favourites to win in this lunchtime start as they are excelling this season and are currently occupying third place, while Forest are in 17th position 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 defeated 4-1 by league-leading Arsenal and Forest lost 2-0 to Everton.
This shapes up as a tough task for Sean Dyche’s side to obtain all three points with Villa boasting 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 perhaps it’s a new year and a new narrative? The answer will be revealed very soon.
The confirmed XIs will drop shortly before the start at 12.30pm GMT.
Starting Elevens
The starting XIs have been announced. The Villa boss has made a quartet of alterations to his starting XI who were defeated by 4-1 to Arsenal last time around.
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 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.
Substitutes: Sels, Morato, Awoniyi, Luiz, Kalimuendo, McAtee, Zinchenko, Savona, Abbott.
Dugout Insights
Forest boss Sean Dyche has said on his opponent today:
"Emery has delivered a excellent job as a manager there. Their signings has been strong - spent a lot of money, to be fair, on some excellent players and they’ve forged it into a cohesive team, so certainly a difficult game.
We’ve just demonstrated lately, we’ve faced some of the bigger teams, or the ones that are fancied every year, and held our own against them - and a couple of teams maybe not as fancied, we haven’t done as well against them. That’s probably the challenge of the group - rising to the challenge of each game rather than just the major fixtures."
Transfer Update
Harvey Elliott has will not be staying at Aston Villa, news that was confirmed by the manager Unai Emery in the lead-up to this match. The boss said:
"I am respecting him as much as possible because he’s a very good professional, very respectful. The situation we have with Harvey is this year he is on loan and if he is featuring regularly, we are obligated to buy him. We made the decision two months ago we are not convinced to make the move permanent, spending the money we need."
Form Guide
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 twice and Sean Dyche is tasked with keeping the club in the Premier League this season. Since being appointed on 21 October, Dyche has accumulated 10 Premier League points and the side are just above the relegation zone with 19 games of the season remaining.
