Villa versus Nottingham Forest: Premier League Build-Up
Introduction
Greetings and welcome to this Premier League clash between Villa and Nottingham Forest. Aston Villa are the strong favourites to win in this early kick-off as they are soaring this season and are currently sitting third, while Nottingham Forest are in 17th position and just four points outside of the relegation zone.
The two teams are coming into the game off of the back of a loss as Villa were defeated 4-1 by top-of-the-table Arsenal and Forest succumbed 2-0 to Everton.
It will be a tough task for Sean Dyche’s side to come away with all three points with Villa having one of the best home records in Europe at the moment and they also set 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 confirmed XIs will drop shortly before kick-off at 12.30pm GMT.
Team News
The starting XIs have been announced. The Villa boss has made four changes to his first eleven who were defeated by 4-1 to Arsenal last time around.
Aston Villa: Martinez, Cash, Konsa, Lindelof, Maatsen, Kamara, Tielemans, McGinn, Buendia, Rogers, Watkins.
Bench: 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.
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 said on his opponent today:
"Emery has delivered a great job as a manager there. Their signings has been strong - invested a lot of money, to be fair, on some very good players and they’ve shaped it into a cohesive team, so certainly a challenging game.
We’ve just demonstrated lately, we’ve taken on some of the larger clubs, or the ones that are fancied every year, and done very well against them - and a couple of teams perhaps not as fancied, we struggled more against them. That’s likely the challenge of the group - rising to the expectation of each game rather than just the big games."
Squad News
Harvey Elliott has no future at Aston Villa, an update that was confirmed by the manager Emery in the build-up to this match. The boss stated:
"I am respecting him all we can because he’s a excellent professional, very dedicated. 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 convinced to make the move permanent, spending the money we need."
Season Snapshot
What a difference a year makes. 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 won 10 Premier League points and the side are just above the relegation zone with 19 games of the season to go.