Aston Villa versus Forest: Premier League Preview
Introduction
Greetings and welcome to this Premier League clash between Villa and Nottingham Forest. Aston Villa are the favourites to win in this early kick-off as they are flying this season and are currently occupying third place, while Forest are seventeenth and just four points outside of the relegation zone.
Both clubs are coming into the game off of the back of a setback as Villa were overcome 4-1 by league-leading Arsenal and Forest succumbed 2-0 to Everton.
This promises to be a challenging task for Forest to come away with all three points with Villa boasting 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 maybe it’s new year, new story? The answer will be revealed very soon.
The team news will be released shortly before kick-off at 12.30pm GMT.
Team News
The team news is in. The Villa boss has made four changes to his starting XI 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 also made four changes to their starting 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.
Pre-Match Quotes
Nottingham Forest manager Sean Dyche has commented on his opponent today:
"He has done a fantastic job as a manager there. Their signings has been good - spent a lot of money, to be fair, on some top players and they’ve moulded it into a cohesive team, so definitely a tough game.
We’ve just shown lately, we’ve faced some of the bigger teams, or the ones that are fancied every year, and done very well against them - and a couple of teams perhaps not as highly-rated, we struggled more against them. That’s likely the test of the group - meeting the expectation of each game rather than just the big games."
Player Situation
Harvey Elliott has no future at Aston Villa, an update that was confirmed by the manager Emery in the lead-up to this match. The boss stated:
"We respect 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 playing matches, we must buy him. We made the decision two months ago we are not convinced to make the move permanent, committing the money we need."
Form Guide
The tables have turned. This time last year Forest were third in the table, where Aston Villa are now. A lot of things have shifted, including the manager on two occasions and the current boss is tasked with keeping the club in the Premier League this season. Since being named manager on 21 October, Dyche has secured 10 Premier League points and the side are just outside the relegation zone with 19 games of the season to go.
