Aston Villa versus Nottingham Forest: Top-Flight Match Preview

The team news is in. Unai Emery 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.

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 loss to Everton.

Nott’m Forest: Victor, Williams, Murillo, Anderson, Gibbs-White, Dominguez, I Jesus, Hutchinson, Bakwa, Milenkovic, Aina.

Substitutes: Sels, Morato, Awoniyi, Luiz, Kalimuendo, McAtee, Zinchenko, Savona, Abbott.

Nottingham Forest manager Sean Dyche has commented on his opponent today:

"He has done a excellent job as a manager there. Their recruitment has been strong - spent a lot of money, to be fair, on some very good players and they’ve moulded it into a cohesive team, so certainly a tough game.

We’ve just shown lately, we’ve played against some of the larger clubs, 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 probably the test of the group - rising to the challenge of each game rather than just the big games."

Harvey Elliott has will not be staying at Aston Villa, an update that was stated by the manager Unai Emery in the lead-up to this match. The boss said:

"I am respecting him all we can because he’s a excellent professional, very respectful. The problem we have with Harvey is this year he is a loan player and if he is featuring regularly, we must buy him. We made the decision two months ago we are not convinced to make the move permanent, committing the money we need."

How times change. This time last year Nottingham Forest were in third place in the table, where Aston Villa are now. A lot of things have changed, 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 won 10 Premier League points and the side are just outside the relegation zone with 19 games of the season remaining.