Aston Villa vs Nottingham Forest Preview: The Form Paradox & Onana's Absence at Villa Park
Lucas Digne's arm in the 71st minute decided the first leg. Chris Wood, 26 from 27 across his career from the spot, did the rest. The scoreline read 1-0 to Nottingham Forest. The expected goals read 1.56 to 0.79 in their favour, the more uncomfortable line for Aston Villa to take back to Birmingham, because it said the home side were not just slightly better, they were materially better at creating chances on their own ground.
Villa now arrive at Villa Park needing a goal and a clean sheet against a Forest side they could not break down on Forest's ground, off the back of three straight defeats in all competitions, and with the most important midfielder in their team unavailable. Forest, sixteenth in the Premier League and unbeaten in their last ten across all competitions, are 90 minutes from their first European final since 1980.
Sixteenth in the table, top of Europe's form chart
Forest are unbeaten in ten matches across all competitions, with five straight wins in their last five and the most recent of those on Monday night against Chelsea, when Vítor Pereira made eight changes from the side that edged Villa 1-0 in the first leg and still walked out of Stamford Bridge 3-1 up through a Taiwo Awoniyi brace and an Igor Jesus finish.
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Matches unbeaten for Forest in all competitions.
This is not the kind of run a side six points clear of the relegation zone is meant to put together. The change of manager in mid-February, the move to a flexible 4-4-2 with Wood and Igor Jesus paired up top, and the Gibbs-White inside-left licence Pereira has built the attack around have produced numbers that bear comparison with the top half of the table, not the bottom four.
The Europa League run-in tells the same story in a different competition: 24 goals across the campaign, seven clean sheets, and one defeat in seven away matches, with knockouts against Fenerbahçe, Midtjylland on penalties, and Porto already in the bag before the City Ground tie with Villa. Forest are the team in this fixture that has actually been winning football matches recently.
Three defeats, and the row Emery is still answering
Aston Villa have lost their last three matches in all competitions: Fulham at Craven Cottage on the 25th of April with 61 per cent of the ball and one shot on target, Forest at the City Ground five days later, and Tottenham at Villa Park on Sunday, 2-1, with seven changes from the side that had walked into Nottingham the week before.
The Spurs selection drew anger from West Ham and from Forest, both clubs publicly questioning whether the Villa team sheet had compromised the integrity of the Premier League run-in. Emery did not concede the point.
I am here for more than three years, and how we have done everything, I don't forget it.
— Unai Emery
The defence of his right to rotate was firm, but the defence on the pitch was less so: Tottenham found the holes that the changed back four left, and walked out with the points.
The contrast with how Pereira's eight changes worked at Stamford Bridge a day later does not sit easily on the bus to Birmingham. Pereira rotated and walked out of Chelsea 3-1 up; Emery rotated and lost at home to Tottenham, with a European semi-final to win in the next match against the side directly inconvenienced by the original decision.
Onana's calf, Bogarde's biggest night yet
The team news that shifts this leg is Amadou Onana. The Belgian came off in the 55th minute at the City Ground, replaced by Lamare Bogarde, and a calf injury has now ruled him out of Thursday entirely. Villa lose a midfielder with 21 Premier League starts, 2.4 tackles per 90, 64 per cent of his duels won, and the most consistent aerial presence at the base of their midfield. The replacement is Lamare Bogarde, a defender by trade pressed into deep midfield, alongside Youri Tielemans, in an engine room Forest already had the better of in the first leg.
John McGinn returns from the issue that kept him out of the Spurs defeat, having trained normally on Wednesday. Emi Buendía and Jadon Sancho are competing for the left-side berth in support of Ollie Watkins, and Ian Maatsen is expected at left-back ahead of Lucas Digne, whose arm gave Forest the only goal of the first leg.
Forest's bigger headache sits in the medical room. Morgan Gibbs-White, the captain and the player Pereira's free-role system is built around, is a serious doubt after a deep cut to his forehead from a clash with Robert Sánchez at Stamford Bridge required multiple stitches and a custom-made face mask.
He is a fighter and we hope for a miracle.
— Vítor Pereira
Murillo continues to miss out through a hamstring, with Nikola Milenković and Morato in central defence, and Taiwo Awoniyi, the man who scored the Stamford Bridge brace on Monday, is not registered in Forest's UEFA squad, leaving Wood as Pereira's only senior recognised number nine in Europe and the Wood and Igor Jesus pairing up top all but locked in.
Predicted Aston Villa XI (4-2-3-1): Martínez; Cash, Konsa, Pau Torres, Maatsen; Bogarde, Tielemans; McGinn, Rogers, Buendía; Watkins
Predicted Nottingham Forest XI (4-4-2): Ortega; Aina, Milenković, Morato, Williams; Hutchinson, Domínguez, Anderson, Gibbs-White; Igor Jesus, Wood
Solving a structure Villa could not solve away
The tactical question for Villa Park is the same one Villa could not answer at the City Ground. Pereira's flexible 4-4-2, with the Wood and Igor Jesus pairing leading the line and a midfield bank built around Elliot Anderson and Nicolás Domínguez, kept Aston Villa to four shots on target across the entire first leg, and pressed forward decisively when Forest had the ball, producing 1.56 expected goals to Villa's 0.79.
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Aston Villa's expected goals at the City Ground, against Forest's 1.56.
Emery's response on home soil will involve more risk than last week. Villa need a goal to take the tie to extra time and two to win it inside ninety minutes, which means a higher line, more aggressive pressing, and the build-up forced more centrally because Forest's two strikers will keep the Villa centre-backs honest. The full-backs Cash and Maatsen will be asked to provide width earlier and overlap more often, with the Tielemans-Bogarde pivot covering ground that Onana would normally cover alone.
The risk is the structure Pereira will trust to absorb pressure and break out. Forest have lost only one of their last seven Europa League away matches, kept seven clean sheets across the campaign, and have already shown at the City Ground that they will sit a back four and ask the home side to find ways through with the ball. Villa Park will be louder, but the defensive shape Forest will set up in does not change with the volume.
The deep midfield, and the striker mismatch
Elliot Anderson and Youri Tielemans look broadly similar on paper, two midfielders of comparable level operating at comparable depth, with near-identical numbers across tackles per 90 (2.83 to 2.81), duels won (55 per cent to 59), pass completion in the mid-80s, and key passes per 90 level.
The context says something different. Anderson has played 3,089 Premier League minutes this season, the engine room of a Forest side built around him, with Gibbs-White roaming inside off the left and Domínguez or Sangaré covering the channels he vacates. Tielemans has played 1,667 Premier League minutes, a rotational starter rather than a fixture, and on Thursday he plays the most important match of his Villa season alongside Bogarde, a defender by trade. Anderson ran the first half at the City Ground, drawing the kind of foul-no-card incident from Villa's bench that Emery was still complaining about hours after full time. Whether Bogarde, a defender by trade, can live with him alongside Tielemans is the live question Villa carry into the return leg.
Up the field, Ollie Watkins is the cleanest mismatch on the night, with 11 Premier League goals this season, a per-ninety expected goals number in the top bracket of the division, and a Forest centre-back partnership of Nikola Milenković and Morato lined up against him, with Murillo still missing and Jair Cunha doubtful. Watkins was kept quiet by Stefan Ortega in the first leg. The German, signed from Manchester City in February as Pereira's pick over Matz Sels in Europe, tipped a Morgan Rogers curler away on 28 minutes and then beat Watkins to a clean strike at 57. Ortega does not get to do that twice in seven days.
Sixteenth, fifth, and Forest have the run of form
Premier League Standings Snapshot
| Team | # | P | GD | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 Aston Villa | 5 | 35 | +4 | 58 |
 Nottingham Forest | 16 | 34 | -2 | 42 |
Aston Villa are fifth in the Premier League on 58 points, level with Liverpool, six ahead of Bournemouth in sixth, and inside touching distance of a Champions League place via either the league or the trophy in front of them. Forest are sixteenth on 42 points, six clear of West Ham in eighteenth, with the relegation conversation parked for the season but not yet formally closed.
The table is not the form: Villa have lost three in a row, Forest have not lost in 10, and the team in fifth is in worse short-term shape than the team in sixteenth, which is the kind of inversion the back end of a Premier League season does not usually produce. Villa lift a trophy and lock the Champions League if they get to Istanbul. Forest reach a European final for the first time since 1980, in their first UEFA campaign for 30 years, having only entered the Europa League last August because Crystal Palace were demoted out of it. Both prizes are season-defining; only one team can take the next step.
Nyberg, the Swede with no English priors
Glenn Nyberg of Sweden takes the second leg, with no recorded prior fixture involving either Aston Villa or Forest. The career numbers are 3.21 yellow cards per match across more than 300 games, and a willingness to use a red card sparingly. The notable detail in his European record is the Arsenal vs Bayern Champions League quarter-final in April 2024, when Thomas Tuchel publicly criticised him for declining to award a handball penalty against Gabriel. The VAR booth on Thursday is run by Jérôme Brisard of France, in a tie that already had one disputed VAR moment, the no-card decision on Anderson's challenge on Watkins at the City Ground.
Referee Stats: Glenn Nyberg
| Stat | Value |
|---|---|
| Nationality | Sweden |
| FIFA list since | 2016 |
| Career matches | 328 |
| Avg yellows / match | 3.21 |
| Avg reds / match | 0.05 |
| Career penalties | 72 |
No prior fixture involving either Aston Villa or Nottingham Forest. VAR is Jérôme Brisard (France).
Villa Park has to be Villa Park
Villa Park has been the place where Villa's season worked: 9 straight European home wins, a 100 per cent home record across six Europa League matches this season, 14 home goals scored, and a stadium that has scored in 31 of the last 32 European nights it has hosted. The Premier League version is a different building, with three straight defeats in all competitions, the most recent at Villa Park to Tottenham last Sunday. The Europa League version of Villa Park, the one that put Bologna away 4-0 last month, is the team Emery needs back on Thursday night; the league version, beaten on home soil only days ago, is the one Forest will be hoping arrives.
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Consecutive European home wins for Aston Villa at Villa Park.
Pereira told reporters this week that he had prepared his side for any outcome, including a penalty shoot-out. The City Ground built the lead, and the version of Villa Park that turns up on Thursday will decide whether Villa take it back or spend the next two weeks watching Forest pack for Istanbul.
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