How Aston Villa were made to sweat for a seventh successive victory. At least the manner in which Nottingham Forest swarmed their goal as they pushed for a second-half equaliser may prove a decent dress rehearsal for Wednesday’s quarter-final at Paris Saint-Germain.
Forest pulled a goal back through half-time substitute Jota Silva and then dialled up the pressure but the visitors, determined to emulate Villa by gatecrashing the Champions League, were beaten by early goals from Morgan Rogers and Donyell Malen.
Related: Aston Villa 2-1 Nottingham Forest: Premier League – live reaction
The referee, Simon Hooper, officiated a 5-5 draw between these teams in November 2018, when Tammy Abraham scored four goals for Villa and John McGinn and Matty Cash were on opposing sides, and while this time the fixture did not throw up six goals like last season, this was another watchable feast.
Murillo smacked the crossbar from 30 yards in stoppage time and there was argy-bargy between Emiliano Martínez and Silva. Forest peppered Villa’s goal in the second half, with Neco Williams and Elliot Anderson both blasting inches wide, and Nuno Espírito Santo will wonder how his side departed empty-handed.
Approaching the half-hour, a gaggle of Villa players gathered close to the touchline, almost directly in front of the tunnel. Pau Torres, Ezri Konsa, Jacob Ramsey and Boubacar Kamara, arguably their biggest asset, stayed largely in touching distance. A few minutes later McGinn, the Villa captain, and Marcus Rashford, fresh from scoring his first league goal for Villa at Brighton in midweek, joined them.
This was Villa’s strength in depth hiding in plain sight, the luminous warm-up bibs the giveaway. On the day those aforementioned players represented Plan B, though Plan A went so swimmingly that Emery need not fret about hurrying changes.
Emery made eight of those for this game, Martínez, Youri Tielemans and Rogers the only players asked to go again from the off. It was difficult to argue it was a weakened team given it meant Emery promoted Ollie Watkins and Marco Asensio to his starting lineup.
Forest, meanwhile, were without the injured Ola Aina, the ineligible Àlex Moreno, who is on loan from Villa, and, most significantly, both of their strikers, Taiwo Awoniyi and Chris Wood.
Villa led 2-0 inside 15 minutes, Forest floored by Villa’s boundless energy, and those early goals vindicated Emery’s decision to shuffle his pack. Ian Maatsen, who did not feature in Villa’s previous two matches, was a hive of activity, busy bombing forward from left-back. Maatsen registered Villa’s first shot after latching on to a sumptuous Rogers backheel. Then Asensio prodded wide.
Forest struggled to cage Maatsen. The Dutchman burned past the Forest captain, Ryan Yates, to tee up Villa’s second. Maatsen surged down the flank, twisted inside and then out and sent a superb ball towards the back post. Malen side-footed in, beating Williams to the punch.
Villa’s first goal talked to the confidence flowing through a team that came into this game on a six-match winning run. Tielemans floated a ball over the top of Morato, who came into the repacked three-man Forest defence, and Rogers, surely one of the stars of the season, did the rest. Rogers took the ball down with the outside of his right boot and then whistled a left-foot finish through the legs of Matz Sels in the Forest goal.
Anthony Elanga and the returning Callum Hudson-Odoi went close in quick succession in the first half but Nuno recognised the need to make life more uncomfortable for Villa. Jota Silva arrived in place of Elanga, the hero against Manchester United on Tuesday, and acquainted himself with the Villa centre-backs. Forest put their foot to the floor and Villa struggled to come up for air.
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Williams ballooned wide after good work by Morgan Gibbs-White and then Hudson-Odoi wrapped his right foot around the ball to send a curling shot much closer to goal. Villa were drowning under pressure and Jota pulled a goal back approaching the hour. Williams pushed the ball inside to Anderson, who recorded a swing and a miss, but Jota swivelled and sent a shot through the legs of Konsa, another half-time arrival.
Anderson put his hands on his head in disbelief as he sent another effort close. Rogers missed a chance to kill the game after seizing on a mistimed jump by Murillo. Forest kept coming. Gibbs-White volleyed wide from a Hudson-Odoi cross and Williams tried his luck from the opposite wing. Murillo then cracked the frame of Martínez’s goal from distance. Then, eventually, the final whistle.
