🔗 Share this article Aston Villa against Forest: Top-Flight Build-Up Preamble Hello and welcome to this English top-flight encounter between Aston Villa and Forest. The home side are the expected winners to win in this lunchtime start as they are excelling this season and are currently occupying third place, while Nottingham Forest are 17th and just a handful of points outside of the relegation zone. The two teams are coming into the game off of the back of a defeat as Villa were defeated 4-1 by top-of-the-table Arsenal and Forest lost 2-0 to Everton. This promises to be a difficult task for the visitors to obtain all three points with Villa having 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 perhaps it’s new year, new story? We will find out very soon. The starting lineups will be released shortly before kick-off at 12.30pm GMT. Confirmed Lineups The team news is in. Unai Emery has made four changes to his starting lineup who lost 4-1 to Arsenal in their previous match. 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 also 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 said on his counterpart today: "Emery has delivered a fantastic job as a manager there. Their recruitment has been good - spent a lot of money, to be fair, on some excellent players and they’ve shaped it into a strong side, so certainly a difficult game. We’ve just demonstrated 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 challenge of the group - meeting the expectation of each game rather than just the major fixtures." Player Situation The midfielder has will not be staying at Aston Villa, news that was revealed by the manager Emery in the build-up to this match. The boss stated: "We respect him all we can because he’s a very good professional, very dedicated. The issue we have with Harvey is this year he is a loan player and if he is featuring regularly, we must buy him. We decided two months ago we are not persuaded to make the move permanent, committing the money we need." Form Guide How times change. This time last year Nottingham Forest were third in the table, where Villa are now. A lot of things have changed, including the manager twice and the current boss is tasked with keeping the club in the top-flight this season. Since being appointed on 21 October, Dyche has won 10 Premier League points and the side are just above the bottom three with 19 games of the season remaining.
Preamble Hello and welcome to this English top-flight encounter between Aston Villa and Forest. The home side are the expected winners to win in this lunchtime start as they are excelling this season and are currently occupying third place, while Nottingham Forest are 17th and just a handful of points outside of the relegation zone. The two teams are coming into the game off of the back of a defeat as Villa were defeated 4-1 by top-of-the-table Arsenal and Forest lost 2-0 to Everton. This promises to be a difficult task for the visitors to obtain all three points with Villa having 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 perhaps it’s new year, new story? We will find out very soon. The starting lineups will be released shortly before kick-off at 12.30pm GMT.
Confirmed Lineups The team news is in. Unai Emery has made four changes to his starting lineup who lost 4-1 to Arsenal in their previous match. 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 also 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 said on his counterpart today: "Emery has delivered a fantastic job as a manager there. Their recruitment has been good - spent a lot of money, to be fair, on some excellent players and they’ve shaped it into a strong side, so certainly a difficult game. We’ve just demonstrated 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 challenge of the group - meeting the expectation of each game rather than just the major fixtures."
Player Situation The midfielder has will not be staying at Aston Villa, news that was revealed by the manager Emery in the build-up to this match. The boss stated: "We respect him all we can because he’s a very good professional, very dedicated. The issue we have with Harvey is this year he is a loan player and if he is featuring regularly, we must buy him. We decided two months ago we are not persuaded to make the move permanent, committing the money we need."
Form Guide How times change. This time last year Nottingham Forest were third in the table, where Villa are now. A lot of things have changed, including the manager twice and the current boss is tasked with keeping the club in the top-flight this season. Since being appointed on 21 October, Dyche has won 10 Premier League points and the side are just above the bottom three with 19 games of the season remaining.