Aston Villa against Nottingham Forest: Top-Flight Build-Up

The lineups have been confirmed. The Villa boss has made four changes to his starting XI who lost 4-1 to Arsenal last time out.

Villa: Martinez, Cash, Konsa, Lindelof, Maatsen, Kamara, Tielemans, McGinn, Buendia, Rogers, Watkins.

Substitutes: 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 defeat to Everton.

Nottingham Forest: Victor, Williams, Murillo, Anderson, Gibbs-White, Dominguez, I Jesus, Hutchinson, Bakwa, Milenkovic, Aina.

Bench: Sels, Morato, Awoniyi, Luiz, Kalimuendo, McAtee, Zinchenko, Savona, Abbott.

Nottingham Forest manager Sean Dyche has remarked on his opponent today:

"Emery has delivered a great job as a manager there. Their signings has been strong - spent a lot of money, to be fair, on some very good players and they’ve forged it into a good unit, so definitely a tough game.

We’ve just shown lately, we’ve played against some of the bigger teams, or the ones that are tipped every year, and done very well against them - and a couple of teams maybe not as fancied, we haven't performed as strongly against them. That’s likely the challenge 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 Emery in the build-up to this match. The boss said:

"I am respecting 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 made the decision two months ago we are not persuaded to make the move permanent, committing the money we need."

How times change. This time last year Forest were third in the table, where Villa are now. A lot of things have altered, 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 outside the relegation zone with 19 games of the season remaining.