Villa v Nottingham Forest: Top-Flight Build-Up

The starting XIs have been announced. Unai Emery has made four changes to his starting XI who lost 4-1 to Arsenal last time out.

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

Substitutes: Bizot, Digne, Sancho, Garcia, Carroll, Bogarde, Hemmings, Malen, Jimoh-Aloba.

Forest have also made four adjustments 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.

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

"He’s [Unai Emery] done a excellent job as a manager there. Their signings has been good - spent a lot of money, to be fair, on some very good players and they’ve forged it into a cohesive team, so definitely a challenging game.

We’ve just shown lately, we’ve played against some of the larger clubs, or the ones that are tipped every year, and held our own against them - and a couple of teams maybe not as fancied, we haven't performed as strongly against them. That’s probably the test of the group - rising to the challenge of each game rather than just the major fixtures."

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

"I am respecting him as much as possible because he’s a very good professional, very dedicated. The problem 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."

The tables have turned. This time last year Nottingham Forest were in third place in the table, where Villa are now. A lot of things have shifted, including the manager twice and Sean Dyche is tasked with keeping the club in the Premier League this season. Since being named manager on 21 October, Dyche has won 10 Premier League points and the side are just above the bottom three with 19 games of the season remaining.