Aston Villa v Nottingham Forest: Top-Flight Preview

The team news is in. The Villa boss has made four changes to his starting XI who lost 4-1 to Arsenal last time around.

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

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

Nottingham Forest have likewise made four adjustments to their starting squad after a 2-0 loss 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.

Forest boss Sean Dyche has said on his counterpart today:

"Emery has delivered a excellent job as a manager there. Their signings has been impressive - spent a lot of money, to be fair, on some top players and they’ve moulded it into a strong side, so definitely a difficult game.

We’ve just shown lately, we’ve played against some of the bigger teams, or the ones that are tipped every year, and done very well against them - and a couple of teams maybe not as fancied, we haven't performed as strongly against them. That’s likely the test of the group - meeting the challenge 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 Unai Emery in the build-up to this match. The boss commented:

"We respect him all we can because he’s a top professional, very respectful. The situation we have with Harvey is this year he is a loan player and if he is playing matches, we must buy him. We decided two months ago we are not convinced to make the move permanent, spending the money we need."

How times change. This time last year Forest were in third place in the table, where Aston Villa are now. A lot of things have altered, including the manager twice and Sean Dyche is charged 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 above the bottom three with 19 games of the season remaining.