Aston Villa against Forest: Premier League Match Preview

The team news is in. The Villa boss has made a quartet of alterations to his starting XI who were defeated by 4-1 to Arsenal last time out.

Aston 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 also made four changes 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.

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

"He has done a excellent job as a manager there. Their recruitment has been impressive - spent a lot of money, to be fair, on some excellent players and they’ve moulded it into a good unit, so definitely a tough game.

We’ve just demonstrated lately, we’ve taken on some of the bigger teams, or the ones that are favoured every year, and done very well against them - and a couple of teams perhaps not as highly-rated, 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."

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

"We respect him as much as possible because he’s a very good professional, very dedicated. The situation we have with Harvey is this year he is on loan and if he is playing matches, we must buy him. We made the decision two months ago we are not convinced to sign him, committing the money we need."

The tables have turned. This time last year Nottingham Forest were in third place in the table, where Aston Villa are now. A lot of things have shifted, including the manager twice and Sean Dyche is tasked 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 to go.