Introduction
Greetings and welcome to this English top-flight fixture between Aston Villa and Forest. Villa will be the favourites to win in this lunchtime start as they are flying this season and are currently in third, while Forest are 17th and just a handful of points outside of the relegation zone.
Both clubs are coming into the game following a defeat as Villa were beaten 4-1 by league-leading Arsenal and Forest succumbed 2-0 to Everton.
This shapes up as a challenging task for the visitors to come away with all three points with Villa possessing one of the best home forms in Europe at the moment and they also achieved a team record of 36 wins across all competitions this season. But maybe it’s a new year and a new narrative? All will become clear very soon.
The starting lineups will drop shortly before the start at 12.30pm GMT.
Starting Elevens
The lineups have been confirmed. The Villa boss has made four changes to his first eleven who lost 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.
Forest have likewise made four changes to their starting squad after a 2-0 loss to Everton.
Nottingham Forest: Victor, Williams, Murillo, Anderson, Gibbs-White, Dominguez, I Jesus, Hutchinson, Bakwa, Milenkovic, Aina.
Bench: Sels, Morato, Awoniyi, Luiz, Kalimuendo, McAtee, Zinchenko, Savona, Abbott.
Manager Comments
Forest boss Sean Dyche has said on his opponent today:
"He has done a great job as a manager there. Their transfer business has been impressive - invested a lot of money, to be fair, on some top players and they’ve moulded it into a good unit, so certainly a difficult game.
We’ve just shown lately, we’ve taken on some of the bigger teams, or the ones that are tipped 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 test 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, news that was stated by the manager Unai Emery in the lead-up to this match. The boss said:
"I am respecting him as much as possible because he’s a top professional, very dedicated. The problem we have with Harvey is this year he is a loan player and if he is playing matches, we are obligated to buy him. We made the decision two months ago we are not persuaded to make the move permanent, committing the money we need."
League Context
What a difference a year makes. This time last year Forest were in third place in the table, where Villa are now. A lot of things have shifted, including the manager on two occasions and the current boss is charged 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 outside the bottom three with 19 games of the season to go.
