Aston Villa against Nottingham Forest: Premier League Match Preview

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 in their previous match.

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 likewise made four changes to their matchday 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 said on his counterpart today:

"He’s [Unai Emery] done a great job as a manager there. Their signings has been impressive - invested a lot of money, to be fair, on some excellent players and they’ve shaped it into a good unit, so certainly a difficult game.

We’ve just shown lately, we’ve played against some of the larger clubs, or the ones that are fancied every year, and performed admirably against them - and a couple of teams maybe not as fancied, we haven't performed as strongly against them. That’s probably the challenge of the group - meeting the challenge of each game rather than just the big games."

The midfielder has will not be staying at Aston Villa, an update that was stated by the manager Unai 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 playing matches, 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."

The tables have turned. This time last year Nottingham Forest were third in the table, where Aston 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 top-flight this season. Since being appointed 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 remaining.