Villa versus Forest: Premier League Build-Up
Introduction
Hello and welcome to this Premier League encounter between Villa and Forest. Villa will be the expected winners to win in this early kick-off as they are excelling this season and are currently occupying third place, while Nottingham Forest are seventeenth and just a handful of points outside of the relegation zone.
The two teams are coming into the game off of the back of a setback as Villa were beaten 4-1 by league-leading Arsenal and Forest succumbed 2-0 to Everton.
It will be a difficult task for Sean Dyche’s side to secure all three points with Villa boasting one of the best home records in Europe at the moment and they also set a club record of 36 wins across all competitions this season. But perhaps it’s new year, new story? We will find out very soon.
The starting lineups will be announced shortly before the start at 12.30pm GMT.
Starting Elevens
The team news is in. The Villa boss has made a quartet of alterations to his starting XI 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 also made four changes to their starting squad after a 2-0 defeat 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
Nottingham Forest manager Sean Dyche has remarked on his counterpart today:
"He’s [Unai Emery] done a great job as a manager there. Their transfer business has been impressive - spent a lot of money, to be fair, on some excellent players and they’ve shaped it into a strong side, so definitely a challenging game.
We’ve just demonstrated lately, we’ve taken on some of the larger clubs, or the ones that are tipped every year, and done very well against them - and a couple of teams maybe not as fancied, we struggled more against them. That’s likely the test of the group - meeting the challenge of each game rather than just the big games."
Squad News
The midfielder has will not be staying at Aston Villa, an update that was revealed by the manager Emery in the lead-up to this match. The boss commented:
"I am respecting him all we can because he’s a excellent professional, very dedicated. The problem we have with Harvey is this year he is a loan player and if he is featuring regularly, we must buy him. We decided two months ago we are not convinced to make the move permanent, spending the money we need."
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 changed, including the manager on two occasions 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 bottom three with 19 games of the season to go.
