Villa against Forest: Top-Flight Build-Up

The lineups have been confirmed. The Villa boss has made four changes to his starting XI who were defeated by 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.

Forest have also made four adjustments to their matchday squad after a 2-0 loss to Everton.

Nott’m 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 opponent today:

"He’s [Unai Emery] done a fantastic job as a manager there. Their transfer business has been impressive - spent a lot of money, to be fair, on some excellent players and they’ve moulded it into a strong side, so definitely a challenging game.

We’ve just shown lately, we’ve faced some of the top sides, or the ones that are tipped every year, and held our own against them - and a couple of teams maybe not as highly-rated, we haven't performed as strongly against them. That’s likely 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 revealed by the manager Emery in the lead-up to this match. The boss commented:

"I am respecting him as much as possible because he’s a very good professional, very respectful. The problem we have with Harvey is this year he is a loan player and if he is playing matches, we must buy him. We decided two months ago we are not persuaded to make the move permanent, committing the money we need."

What a difference a year makes. This time last year Forest were in third place in the table, where Villa are now. A lot of things have changed, including the manager on two occasions and the current boss is tasked with keeping the club in the Premier League this season. Since being appointed on 21 October, Dyche has secured 10 Premier League points and the side are just above the bottom three with 19 games of the season to go.