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Aston Villa may be set for another crucial Premier League victory v Notts Forest as expert shares injury update
Nottingham Forest are set to be without five first-team players for their Premier League clash against Aston Villa on Sunday 5 November, handing Villa the welcome chance to extend their unbeaten run.
Injury expert Ben Dinnery shared the data on his website and has listed the players that will not be available and are “ruled out”, with only two of them potentially facing a late fitness test before Sunday’s clash at the City Ground.
Callum Hudson-Odoi, Chris Wood Gonzalo Montiel, and Divock Origi are all “ruled out” of action, key defender Felipe’s fitness status is at 25% while Danilo and Taiwo Awoniyi both face late fitness tests before the Aston Villa clash.
All seven of those players are crucial to Steve Cooper’s side and their absences certainly now mean that Forest are severely depleted for Sunday’s game against Unai Emery’s high-flying team.
In fact, Forest haven’t tasted a Premier League victory since their 1-0 win over Chelsea at Stamford Bridge at the start of September (SofaScore), drawing four and losing two since then.
During that span of six games, they’ve only scored four goals with two of them coming from the injured Wood, in their 2-2 draw with Luton Town on 21 October.
They’ve proven goal shy so far this season, possessing one of the worst goal-scoring records in the division but face off against one of the league’s best with Villa so far scoring 26 goals from their 10 games – joint-highest with Newcastle United.
It certainly seems as if all of Cooper’s striker options could be absent for Sunday’s pivotal encounter handing Emery the perfect chance to extend Villa’s winning league run to three games and their unbeaten run to seven games, since their 3-0 defeat to Liverpool – the same weekend Forest beat Chelsea.
With a praiseworthy 22 points from their opening 10 fixtures, Villa – who sit fifth in the rankings at the time of writing – have made their best start to a campaign since the 1998-99 term, and it has been 70 years since the Villans last had seven wins to show from their first 10 games of a top-tier season.
A pair of 4-1 thrashings of AZ Alkmaar and West Ham United preceded their success over Luton, meaning that Villa head to Nottingham with 11 goals under their belt from their last three fixtures suggesting that they are well on hand to beat their Midlands rivals on Sunday.
And the omens don’t make for particularly great reading for Forest as they have failed to get one over their rivals in the top flight since 1994. Aston Villa could well be just a couple of points off the top positions by the time the weekend is out.
In other Aston Villa news, one senior player now has weeks to save his Villa Park career after a new injury update on one Emery favourite emerged.