Aston Villa v Forest: Top-Flight Build-Up

The lineups have been confirmed. Unai Emery 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.

Nottingham 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.

Forest boss Sean Dyche has remarked on his opponent today:

"He has done a fantastic job as a manager there. Their signings has been strong - spent a lot of money, to be fair, on some top players and they’ve forged it into a strong side, so definitely 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 held our own against them - and a couple of teams maybe not as fancied, we struggled more against them. That’s probably the challenge of the group - rising to the challenge of each game rather than just the major fixtures."

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

"We respect him all we can because he’s a excellent professional, very dedicated. The issue we have with Harvey is this year he is a loan player and if he is playing matches, we are obligated to buy him. We decided two months ago we are not persuaded to make the move permanent, committing the money we need."

The tables have turned. This time last year Forest were third in the table, where Villa are now. A lot of things have changed, including the manager on two occasions and Sean Dyche is tasked with keeping the club in the Premier League this season. Since being named manager on 21 October, Dyche has secured 10 Premier League points and the side are just outside the bottom three with 19 games of the season remaining.