Aston Villa v Forest: Premier League Match Preview

The starting XIs have been announced. Unai Emery has made four changes to his starting XI who lost 4-1 to Arsenal in their previous match.

Aston 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 likewise made four adjustments to their starting 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 remarked on his counterpart today:

"He’s [Unai Emery] done a fantastic job as a manager there. Their recruitment has been good - invested a lot of money, to be fair, on some top players and they’ve shaped it into a good unit, so definitely a challenging game.

We’ve just demonstrated lately, we’ve taken on some of the larger clubs, or the ones that are fancied every year, and done very well against them - and a couple of teams maybe not as highly-rated, we struggled more against them. That’s likely the challenge of the group - meeting the challenge of each game rather than just the major fixtures."

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

"I am respecting him all we can because he’s a excellent professional, very dedicated. The issue 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 persuaded to sign him, committing the money we need."

How times change. This time last year Nottingham Forest were third in the table, where 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 appointed 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 remaining.