Aston Villa v Nottingham Forest: Premier League – live

Key events

Show key events only

Please turn on JavaScript to use this feature

Nottingham Forest manager Sean Dyche has said on his opponent today:

He’s [Unai Emery] done a great job as a manager there. Their recruitment 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 certainly a tough game.

We’ve just shown lately, we’ve taken on some of the bigger teams, or the ones that are fancied every year, and done very well against them - and a couple of teams maybe not as fancied, we haven’t done as well against them. That’s probably the challenge of the group - rising to the expectation of each game rather than just big games.

Photograph: Ryan Crockett/Every Second Media/Shutterstock

The team news is in. Unai Emery has made four changes to his starting XI who lost 4-1 to Arsenal last time out.

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

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

Nottingham Forest have made also four changes 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.

Preamble

Hello and welcome to this Premier League fixture between Aston Villa and Nottingham Forest. Villa will be the favourites to win in this early kick-off as they are flying this season and are currently in third, while Nottingham Forest are 17th and just four points outside of the relegation zone.

Both clubs are coming into the game off of the back of a loss as Villa were defeated 4-1 by top-of-the-table Arsenal and Forest lost 2-0 to Everton.

It will be difficult for Sean Dyche’s side to come away with all three points with Villa having one of the best home forms in Europe at the moment and they also recorded a club record of 36 wins across all competitions this season. But maybe it’s new year, new story? We will find out very soon.

The team news will drop shortly before kick-off at 12.30pm GMT.