Aston Villa manager Unai Emery has made two changes to his starting lineup for Sunday’s Premier League fixture against Nottingham Forest.<\/p>\n
Having gone full-strength for Thursday’s 3-1 win at Bologna<\/strong>Emery was always likely to make alterations for the trip to the City Ground.<\/p>\n However, the Spaniard has made fewer alterations than expected, as well as choosing to keep Ollie Watkins down the centre of the attack.<\/p>\n Victor Lindelof has been recalled in place of Ezri Konsa, who fails to start a Premier League game for just the second time in 2025-26.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, Ross Barkley starts in central midfield. That decision is less of a surprise due to the Englishman not being eligible to play in the Europa League.<\/p>\n Rather than Youri Tielemans being rested after his recent return from injury, it is Emiliano Buendia who drops down to the substitutes’ bench.<\/p>\n \u00a9 Iconsport \/ SUSA<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n As for Nottingham Forest, Vitor Pereira has gone back to his first-choice XI after making wholesale changes for the 1-1 draw in Porto<\/strong> on Thursday.<\/p>\n Elliot Anderson is available to return in midfield after serving a one-match Europa League suspension earlier this week.<\/p>\n After making his return from a knee injury in Portugal, Chris Wood is selected among the replacements.<\/p>\n Omari Hutchinson and Callum Hudson-Odoi get the nod over Dan Ndoye and Dilane Bakwa on the flanks.<\/p>\n Nottingham Forest XI:<\/strong> Sels; Aina, Milenkovic, Murillo, Williams; Sangare, Anderson; Hutchinson, Gibbs-White, Hudson-Odoi; Jesus<\/p>\n Subs:<\/strong> Ortega, Morato, Wood, Ndoye, Dominguez, Yates, McAtee, Netz, Bakwa<\/p>\n Aston Villa XI:<\/strong> Martinez; Cash, Lindelof, Torres, Digne; Barkley, Onana, Tielemans; McGinn, Rogers; Watkins<\/p>\n Subs:<\/strong> Bizot, Konsa, Buendia, Garcia, Abraham, Luiz, Maatsen, Bogarde, Bailey<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Aston Villa manager Unai Emery has made two changes to his starting lineup for Sunday’s Premier League fixture against Nottingham Forest. Having gone full-strength for Thursday’s 3-1 win at BolognaEmery was always likely to make alterations for the trip to the City Ground. However, the Spaniard has made fewer alterations than expected, as well as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5070,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5069","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportings.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5069","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportings.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportings.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportings.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportings.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5069"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sportings.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5069\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportings.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5070"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportings.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5069"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportings.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5069"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportings.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5069"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![](\"https:\/\/www.sportsmole.co.uk\/thumbor\/dzTYVToPUP4PHvgI4huLiztmRWs=\/640x480\/smart\/filters:format(webp)\/https%3A%2F%2Fsportsmole-media-prod.s3.gra.io.cloud.ovh.net%2Fuploads%2F2026%2F03%2Fnottingham-forest-manager-vitor-pereira-during-game-vs-fc-midtjylland-on-12-march-2026-susa-69b3567fab69b893560562.jpg\"\/)
<\/p>\nPereira reverts to full-strength Nottingham Forest XI against Aston Villa<\/h2>\n