Aston Villa versus Forest: Premier League Match Preview

The team news is in. Unai Emery has made a quartet of alterations to his starting lineup who lost 4-1 to Arsenal last time around.

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 changes to their starting 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 remarked 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 good unit, so certainly a tough game.

We’ve just demonstrated lately, we’ve faced some of the bigger teams, or the ones that are favoured every year, and held our own against them - and a couple of teams maybe not as fancied, we struggled more against them. That’s likely the challenge of the group - rising to the challenge of each game rather than just the big games."

The midfielder has no future at Aston Villa, an update that was revealed by the manager Unai Emery in the lead-up to this match. The boss stated:

"We respect him all we can because he’s a very good professional, very respectful. The problem we have with Harvey is this year he is on loan 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."

How times change. This time last year Nottingham Forest were in third place in the table, where Villa are now. A lot of things have shifted, including the manager on two occasions and the current boss is tasked with keeping the club in the top-flight this season. Since being appointed on 21 October, Dyche has accumulated 10 Premier League points and the side are just outside the bottom three with 19 games of the season to go.