Aston Villa v Nottingham Forest: Top-Flight Build-Up
Opening Thoughts
Welcome everyone to this English top-flight encounter between Aston Villa and Nottingham Forest. Aston Villa are the strong favourites to win in this early kick-off as they are flying this season and are currently in third, while 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 overcome 4-1 by top-of-the-table Arsenal and Forest succumbed 2-0 to Everton.
This shapes up as a challenging task for Sean Dyche’s side to secure all three points with Villa having one of the best home records in Europe at the moment and they also achieved a club 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 be released shortly before the start at 12.30pm GMT.
Team News
The starting XIs have been announced. Unai Emery has made a quartet of alterations to his starting XI who were defeated by 4-1 to Arsenal in their previous match.
Aston 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 changes to their matchday squad after a 2-0 loss 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.
Pre-Match Quotes
Nottingham Forest manager Sean Dyche has remarked on his opponent today:
"He has done a fantastic job as a manager there. Their transfer business has been good - invested a lot of money, to be fair, on some excellent players and they’ve shaped it into a good unit, so certainly a difficult game.
We’ve just demonstrated lately, we’ve played against some of the top sides, or the ones that are tipped every year, and held our own against them - and a couple of teams maybe not as highly-rated, we haven’t done as well against them. That’s likely the challenge of the group - rising to the challenge of each game rather than just the big games."
Transfer Update
Harvey Elliott has no future at Aston Villa, an update that was revealed by the manager Emery in the build-up to this match. The boss stated:
"We respect him as much as possible because he’s a top professional, very dedicated. The situation we have with Harvey is this year he is a loan player and if he is playing matches, 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."
Season Snapshot
How times change. This time last year Nottingham Forest were third in the table, where Aston Villa are now. A lot of things have altered, including the manager on two occasions and Sean Dyche is charged with keeping the club in the top-flight this season. Since being named manager on 21 October, Dyche has won 10 Premier League points and the side are just outside the relegation zone with 19 games of the season to go.
