Aston Villa against Nottingham Forest: Premier League Build-Up
Preamble
Greetings and welcome to this English top-flight clash between Aston Villa and Nottingham Forest. The home side are the expected winners to win in this early kick-off as they are flying this season and are currently in third, while Nottingham Forest are 17th and just four points outside of the drop zone.
The two teams are entering the game following a defeat as Villa were beaten 4-1 by top-of-the-table Arsenal and Forest succumbed 2-0 to Everton.
It will be a challenging task for Sean Dyche’s side to obtain 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? The answer will be revealed very soon.
The team news will drop shortly before the start at 12.30pm GMT.
Team News
The lineups have been confirmed. Unai Emery has made a quartet of alterations to his starting lineup who lost 4-1 to Arsenal in their previous match.
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 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.
Bench: Sels, Morato, Awoniyi, Luiz, Kalimuendo, McAtee, Zinchenko, Savona, Abbott.
Dugout Insights
Nottingham Forest manager Sean Dyche has commented on his opponent today:
"He’s [Unai Emery] done a great job as a manager there. Their transfer business has been strong - invested a lot of money, to be fair, on some top players and they’ve forged it into a good unit, so certainly a challenging game.
We’ve just shown lately, we’ve taken on some of the larger clubs, or the ones that are favoured every year, and done very well against them - and a couple of teams maybe not as fancied, we haven’t done as well against them. That’s likely the challenge of the group - rising to the expectation of each game rather than just the major fixtures."
Squad News
The midfielder has no future at Aston Villa, news that was stated by the manager Emery in the build-up to this match. The boss said:
"We respect him all we can because he’s a top professional, very dedicated. The situation 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 convinced to sign him, spending the money we need."
League Context
The tables have turned. This time last year Nottingham Forest were in third place in the table, where Villa are now. A lot of things have shifted, including the manager twice 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.
