Aston Villa v Forest: Top-Flight Match Preview

The starting XIs have been announced. Unai Emery has made four changes to his first eleven who were defeated by 4-1 to Arsenal in their previous match.

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 also made four adjustments to their matchday squad after a 2-0 defeat 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:

"Emery has delivered a excellent job as a manager there. Their transfer business has been strong - invested a lot of money, to be fair, on some excellent players and they’ve shaped it into a good unit, so certainly a tough game.

We’ve just shown lately, we’ve played against some of the top sides, or the ones that are fancied every year, and performed admirably against them - and a couple of teams maybe not as highly-rated, we haven’t done as well against them. That’s probably the test of the group - meeting the expectation of each game rather than just the major fixtures."

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

"We respect him as much as possible because he’s a top professional, very respectful. The issue 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 persuaded to make the move permanent, spending the money we need."

What a difference a year makes. 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 twice and Sean Dyche is charged 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.