Aston Villa against Forest: Top-Flight Preview

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

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 starting 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.

Forest boss Sean Dyche has remarked on his counterpart today:

"He’s [Unai Emery] 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 moulded it into a cohesive team, so definitely a challenging game.

We’ve just shown lately, we’ve faced some of the larger clubs, or the ones that are favoured every year, and performed admirably against them - and a couple of teams maybe not as highly-rated, we haven't performed as strongly against them. That’s likely the challenge of the group - rising to the challenge of each game rather than just the major fixtures."

Harvey Elliott 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 said:

"We respect him all we can because he’s a excellent 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 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 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 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 to go.