Hello and welcome to this English top-flight encounter between Villa and Forest. Aston Villa are the favourites to win in this early kick-off as they are excelling this season and are currently sitting third, 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 loss as Villa were defeated 4-1 by league-leading Arsenal and Forest lost 2-0 to Everton.
It will be a difficult task for the visitors to secure all three points with Villa possessing one of the best home forms in Europe at the moment and they also set a club record of 36 wins across all competitions this season. But perhaps it’s new year, new story? The answer will be revealed very soon.
The team news will drop shortly before the start at 12.30pm GMT.
The team news is in. The Villa boss has made a quartet of alterations to his starting XI who were defeated by 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.
Nottingham Forest have also made four adjustments to their matchday 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.
Forest boss Sean Dyche has commented on his counterpart today:
"Emery has delivered a fantastic job as a manager there. Their transfer business has been good - spent a lot of money, to be fair, on some excellent players and they’ve forged it into a cohesive team, so definitely a tough game.
We’ve just shown lately, we’ve taken on some of the bigger teams, or the ones that are fancied every year, and held our own against them - and a couple of teams maybe not as highly-rated, we struggled more against them. That’s probably the test of the group - rising to the expectation of each game rather than just the major fixtures."
Harvey Elliott has no future at Aston Villa, an update that was stated by the manager Unai Emery in the build-up to this match. The boss stated:
"I am respecting him all we can because he’s a top professional, very dedicated. The problem we have with Harvey is this year he is on loan and if he is playing matches, we must buy him. We made the decision two months ago we are not convinced to make the move permanent, spending the money we would need to."
The tables have turned. 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 charged with keeping the club in the top-flight this season. Since being named manager on 21 October, Dyche has won 10 Premier League points and the side are just outside the bottom three with 19 games of the season to go.
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