Aston Villa against Forest: Top-Flight Preview

The team news is in. Unai Emery has made four changes 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.

Nottingham Forest have also made four adjustments to their starting 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.

Forest boss Sean Dyche has commented 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 moulded it into a good unit, so definitely a challenging game.

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

The midfielder has no future at Aston Villa, news that was stated by the manager Emery in the build-up to this match. The boss commented:

"We respect him all we can because he’s a very good professional, very dedicated. The problem we have with Harvey is this year he is a loan player and if he is playing matches, we are obligated to buy him. We made the decision two months ago we are not persuaded to sign him, committing the money we would need to."

How times change. This time last year Forest were in third place in the table, where Villa are now. A lot of things have changed, including the manager twice 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 outside the bottom three with 19 games of the season to go.