🔗 Share this article Villa against Nottingham Forest: Premier League Match Preview Preamble Greetings and welcome to this English top-flight clash between Aston Villa and Forest. Villa will be 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 seventeenth and just a handful of points outside of the relegation zone. Each side are entering the game on the back of a defeat as Villa were overcome 4-1 by league-leading Arsenal and Forest lost 2-0 to Everton. This promises to be a challenging task for the visitors to come away with all three points with Villa boasting one of the best home forms in Europe at the moment and they also recorded a team record of 36 wins across all competitions this season. But perhaps it’s new year, new story? All will become clear very soon. The team news will drop shortly before the start at 12.30pm GMT. Confirmed Lineups The team news is in. Unai Emery has made a quartet of alterations to his first eleven who were defeated by 4-1 to Arsenal last time around. Villa: Martinez, Cash, Konsa, Lindelof, Maatsen, Kamara, Tielemans, McGinn, Buendia, Rogers, Watkins. Bench: Bizot, Digne, Sancho, Garcia, Carroll, Bogarde, Hemmings, Malen, Jimoh-Aloba. Forest have also made four changes to their matchday squad after a 2-0 defeat 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. Pre-Match Quotes Forest boss Sean Dyche has remarked on his opponent today: "Emery has delivered a excellent job as a manager there. Their transfer business has been impressive - invested a lot of money, to be fair, on some very good players and they’ve moulded it into a good unit, so certainly a challenging game. We’ve just demonstrated lately, we’ve taken on some of the larger clubs, or the ones that are favoured every year, and performed admirably against them - and a couple of teams maybe not as highly-rated, we struggled more against them. That’s likely the test of the group - meeting the challenge of each game rather than just the big games." Player Situation The midfielder has will not be staying at Aston Villa, news that was stated by the manager Emery in the build-up to this match. The boss said: "We respect him as much as possible because he’s a top professional, very respectful. The issue 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 convinced to sign him, spending the money we need." League Context How times change. 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 on two occasions and the current boss is tasked with keeping the club in the top-flight this season. Since being named manager 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.
Preamble Greetings and welcome to this English top-flight clash between Aston Villa and Forest. Villa will be 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 seventeenth and just a handful of points outside of the relegation zone. Each side are entering the game on the back of a defeat as Villa were overcome 4-1 by league-leading Arsenal and Forest lost 2-0 to Everton. This promises to be a challenging task for the visitors to come away with all three points with Villa boasting one of the best home forms in Europe at the moment and they also recorded a team record of 36 wins across all competitions this season. But perhaps it’s new year, new story? All will become clear very soon. The team news will drop shortly before the start at 12.30pm GMT.
Confirmed Lineups The team news is in. Unai Emery has made a quartet of alterations to his first eleven who were defeated by 4-1 to Arsenal last time around. Villa: Martinez, Cash, Konsa, Lindelof, Maatsen, Kamara, Tielemans, McGinn, Buendia, Rogers, Watkins. Bench: Bizot, Digne, Sancho, Garcia, Carroll, Bogarde, Hemmings, Malen, Jimoh-Aloba. Forest have also made four changes to their matchday squad after a 2-0 defeat 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.
Pre-Match Quotes Forest boss Sean Dyche has remarked on his opponent today: "Emery has delivered a excellent job as a manager there. Their transfer business has been impressive - invested a lot of money, to be fair, on some very good players and they’ve moulded it into a good unit, so certainly a challenging game. We’ve just demonstrated lately, we’ve taken on some of the larger clubs, or the ones that are favoured every year, and performed admirably against them - and a couple of teams maybe not as highly-rated, we struggled more against them. That’s likely the test of the group - meeting the challenge of each game rather than just the big games."
Player Situation The midfielder has will not be staying at Aston Villa, news that was stated by the manager Emery in the build-up to this match. The boss said: "We respect him as much as possible because he’s a top professional, very respectful. The issue 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 convinced to sign him, spending the money we need."
League Context How times change. 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 on two occasions and the current boss is tasked with keeping the club in the top-flight this season. Since being named manager 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.