Villa against Forest: Premier League Build-Up

The team news is in. Unai Emery has made a quartet of alterations to his first eleven who were defeated by 4-1 to Arsenal last time around.

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 adjustments to their starting squad after a 2-0 defeat 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.

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

"He has done a excellent job as a manager there. Their transfer business has been good - spent a lot of money, to be fair, on some top players and they’ve shaped it into a cohesive team, so definitely a difficult game.

We’ve just shown lately, we’ve taken on some of the top sides, 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 done as well against them. That’s likely the challenge of the group - meeting the expectation of each game rather than just the big games."

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 top professional, very dedicated. The issue 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, spending the money we would need to."

What a difference a year makes. This time last year Nottingham Forest were in third place in the table, where Aston Villa are now. A lot of things have altered, including the manager on two occasions and Sean Dyche is charged with keeping the club in the top-flight this season. Since being appointed 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.