A bad day at the office as Villa lose to Nottingham Forest | OneFootball

Aston Villa lost their first game in seven in all competitions as Nottingham Forest brought Unai Emery’s Villa back down to earth.

Villa have rightly been receiving a lot of praise recently following their start to the season. Still, just as they did away against Newcastle and Liverpool, Villa struggled on the road against a well-organised side with a game plan.

Emery will analyse this game as he knows he needs to find a solution to Villa’s issue on the road. Forest pinpointed Villa’s highline and was narrow and compact making it hard for Villa’s midfield to function.

It is hard to be too harsh on Villa and hopefully, this is a one-off but it is concerning and to be honest, today was frustrating. Had Villa had their scoring boots on, who knows, it could have been a different result.

Report: Nottingham Forest 2-0 Aston Villa

Had Villa avoided defeat, they could have climbed into the Premier League’s top four but it wasn’t to be. The win also sees Forest improve their impressive home record as it now stands as just two defeats in twenty!

The home side had a game plan and it paid off after just 5 minutes when they opened the scoring. Harry Toffolo pulled the ball back for Ola Aina who was left unmarked to score from the edge of the box.

Villa dominated the ball but struggled to create anything until the 36th minute when Nicolò Zaniolo could only watch on as his low effort was pushed behind by keeper Odysseas Vlachodimos.

Emery opted to replace Zaniolo at half-time with Leon Bailey but the home side doubled their lead following a blunder from Emi Martinez.

The goalkeeper struggled to deal with a long-range effort from Orel Mangala as he pushed the effort into the air and the spin carried the ball behind the line to make it 2-0.

Villa continued to dominate the game and had efforts through Ollie Watkins and Moussa Diaby but it wasn’t to be for Emery’s side.

They were outdone and Forest deserved the win (regardless of what the stats say). At times you do think Villa need a plan B instead of little tweaks in the current system but I believe in time, Emery will get it right.

What the managers said

Unai Emery: “It is very hard to accept the result. We made some mistakes. We conceded early, but for another 80 minutes, we played with a good mentality, to try and score.

“The second half they scored another early goal. After this, we were controlling the game, creating chances and getting corners. It is very difficult when the other team scores first. They defended deeply.

“We are fifth in the league, we have 22 points, of course, if we could achieve the three points we would be better. I am proud of the players, before this match I was very proud of the players.

“We took this match as a challenge to get the top four teams, we didn’t achieve it and there is still work to do to try and correct the things we did today with some mistakes.”

Steve Cooper: “It’s a really good win. We came up against an in-form Aston Villa side with really good players.

“We were committed to the plan and we’ve scored two goals from where we could create chances. Villa had a lot of the ball and we were okay with it because I never felt like we conceded any chances. Odysseas Vlachodimos made saves that he should be making. I never felt we were in danger of conceding.”

Up Next

Aston Villa will return to European action when they welcome AZ Alkmaar to Villa Park on Thursday evening. A home game on Sunday against Fulham in the Premier League follows.

Nottingham Forest head to the capital and play West Ham next Sunday.