Villa versus Nottingham Forest: Premier League Preview

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.

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

Forest have also made four adjustments 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.

Forest boss Sean Dyche has said on his opponent today:

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

We’ve just demonstrated lately, we’ve played against some of the bigger teams, or the ones that are favoured every year, and held our own against them - and a couple of teams perhaps not as highly-rated, we haven't performed as strongly against them. That’s probably the test of the group - meeting the expectation of each game rather than just the major fixtures."

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

"I am respecting him as much as possible because he’s a top professional, very respectful. The situation we have with Harvey is this year he is on loan and if he is featuring regularly, we must 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 third in the table, where Aston Villa are now. A lot of things have altered, 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 above the relegation zone with 19 games of the season remaining.