Aston Villa against Forest: Top-Flight Match Preview

The lineups have been confirmed. The Villa boss has made a quartet of alterations to his starting lineup 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 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 said on his opponent today:

"He has done a fantastic job as a manager there. Their signings has been strong - invested a lot of money, to be fair, on some top players and they’ve shaped it into a cohesive team, so certainly a tough game.

We’ve just demonstrated lately, we’ve faced some of the bigger teams, or the ones that are tipped every year, and held our own against them - and a couple of teams perhaps not as highly-rated, we haven't performed as strongly against them. That’s probably the test of the group - meeting the challenge of each game rather than just the major fixtures."

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:

"We respect him as much as possible because he’s a very good professional, very respectful. The problem we have with Harvey is this year he is a loan player and if he is featuring regularly, we are obligated to buy him. We made the decision two months ago we are not convinced to sign him, spending the money we need."

How times change. This time last year Nottingham Forest were in third place in the table, where Villa are now. A lot of things have changed, 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 accumulated 10 Premier League points and the side are just outside the bottom three with 19 games of the season remaining.