Aston Villa versus Nottingham Forest: Top-Flight Match Preview

The team news is in. Unai Emery has made a quartet of alterations to his first eleven who lost 4-1 to Arsenal in their previous match.

Villa: Martinez, Cash, Konsa, Lindelof, Maatsen, Kamara, Tielemans, McGinn, Buendia, Rogers, Watkins.

Bench: Bizot, Digne, Sancho, Garcia, Carroll, Bogarde, Hemmings, Malen, Jimoh-Aloba.

Nottingham Forest have likewise made four adjustments 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.

Forest boss Sean Dyche has remarked on his counterpart today:

"He’s [Unai Emery] done a great job as a manager there. Their signings has been strong - invested a lot of money, to be fair, on some very good players and they’ve forged it into a good unit, so certainly a tough game.

We’ve just shown lately, we’ve faced some of the larger clubs, or the ones that are tipped every year, and performed admirably against them - and a couple of teams maybe not as fancied, we haven’t done as well against them. That’s probably the challenge of the group - meeting the challenge of each game rather than just the big games."

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

"We respect him as much as possible because he’s a excellent professional, very respectful. The problem we have with Harvey is this year he is on loan and if he is featuring regularly, we are obligated to buy him. We made the decision two months ago we are not convinced to sign him, committing the money we would need to."

What a difference a year makes. This time last year Nottingham Forest were in third place in the table, where Aston Villa are now. A lot of things have shifted, including the manager twice and Sean Dyche is charged with keeping the club in the Premier League 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 remaining.