Aston Villa against Nottingham Forest: Premier League Build-Up
Opening Thoughts
Hello and welcome to this Premier League clash between Aston Villa and Nottingham Forest. The home side are the strong favourites to win in this lunchtime start as they are excelling this season and are currently in third, while Nottingham Forest are 17th and just four points outside of the relegation zone.
The two teams are entering the game on the back of a defeat as Villa were defeated 4-1 by top-of-the-table Arsenal and Forest fell 2-0 to Everton.
This promises to be a difficult task for Sean Dyche’s side to come away with all three points with Villa having one of the best home forms in Europe at the moment and they also recorded a club 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 be released shortly before kick-off at 12.30pm GMT.
Confirmed Lineups
The team news is in. The Villa boss has made a quartet of alterations to his first eleven who were defeated by 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 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.
Bench: Sels, Morato, Awoniyi, Luiz, Kalimuendo, McAtee, Zinchenko, Savona, Abbott.
Dugout Insights
Forest boss Sean Dyche has remarked on his counterpart today:
"He has done a fantastic job as a manager there. Their signings has been good - invested a lot of money, to be fair, on some very good players and they’ve shaped it into a cohesive team, so definitely a tough game.
We’ve just shown lately, we’ve played against some of the larger clubs, or the ones that are favoured every year, and performed admirably against them - and a couple of teams maybe not as highly-rated, we haven't performed as strongly against them. That’s likely the challenge of the group - meeting the expectation of each game rather than just the major fixtures."
Squad News
The midfielder has will not be staying at Aston Villa, an update that was confirmed by the manager Unai Emery in the lead-up to this match. The boss commented:
"We respect him all we can because he’s a very good professional, very respectful. The issue 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 made the decision two months ago we are not persuaded to sign him, spending the money we would need to."
League Context
What a difference a year makes. This time last year Nottingham Forest were third 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 won 10 Premier League points and the side are just outside the bottom three with 19 games of the season to go.
