Villa v Forest: Top-Flight Build-Up

The starting XIs have been announced. The Villa boss has made a quartet of alterations to his starting lineup who were defeated by 4-1 to Arsenal last time out.

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 matchday squad after a 2-0 defeat to Everton.

Nottingham 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 has done a excellent job as a manager there. Their signings has been good - invested a lot of money, to be fair, on some very good players and they’ve moulded it into a strong side, so certainly a difficult game.

We’ve just demonstrated 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 perhaps not as fancied, we struggled more 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, an update that was revealed by the manager Emery in the lead-up to this match. The boss commented:

"We respect him as much as possible because he’s a very good professional, very respectful. The situation we have with Harvey is this year he is on loan and if he is featuring regularly, we are obligated to buy him. We decided 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 Forest were in third place in the table, where Villa are now. A lot of things have shifted, including the manager twice and the current boss is charged with keeping the club in the top-flight this season. Since being named manager on 21 October, Dyche has accumulated 10 Premier League points and the side are just above the bottom three with 19 games of the season to go.