Opening Thoughts
Welcome everyone to this Premier League encounter between Villa and Nottingham Forest. Aston Villa are the strong favourites to win in this lunchtime start as they are excelling this season and are currently sitting third, while Forest are seventeenth and just four points outside of the drop zone.
The two teams are entering the game following a defeat as Villa were beaten 4-1 by league-leading Arsenal and Forest lost 2-0 to Everton.
It will be a difficult task for Forest to obtain all three points with Villa having one of the best home records in Europe at the moment and they also recorded a club record of 36 wins across all competitions this season. But perhaps it’s a new year and a new narrative? We will find out very soon.
The team news will be announced shortly before kick-off at 12.30pm GMT.
Team News
The lineups have been confirmed. The Villa boss has made four changes to his starting XI who lost 4-1 to Arsenal last time out.
Aston 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 adjustments to their starting squad after a 2-0 defeat to Everton.
Nott’m 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 commented on his opponent today:
"He has done a excellent job as a manager there. Their signings has been impressive - invested a lot of money, to be fair, on some excellent players and they’ve forged it into a good unit, so certainly a challenging game.
We’ve just shown lately, we’ve taken on some of the bigger teams, or the ones that are tipped every year, and held our own against them - and a couple of teams perhaps not as highly-rated, we haven’t done as well against them. That’s likely the challenge of the group - meeting the challenge of each game rather than just the major fixtures."
Squad News
Harvey Elliott has no future at Aston Villa, an update that was stated by the manager Emery in the build-up to this match. The boss said:
"We respect him all we can because he’s a excellent professional, very respectful. The issue we have with Harvey is this year he is on loan and if he is playing matches, we must buy him. We decided two months ago we are not convinced to sign him, 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 changed, including the manager twice and Sean Dyche is charged 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 above the bottom three with 19 games of the season to go.
