It is eight years since Aston Villa and Nottingham Forest played out a Championship classic, a topsy-turvy 5-5 draw at Villa Park in which Tammy Abraham got four goals. John McGinn was also in the Villa side and Matty Cash scored to earn Forest a 3-2 lead with 22 minutes on the clock, before more drama ensued. Forest were reduced to 10 men but Lewis Grabban, who played for Villa the previous season, struck the final goal to earn a point.
It is the first top-flight meeting between the teams this millennium; however, that goes some way to telling the story of these sides, particularly Villa’s stealth. It was three and a half years ago, a couple of weeks before Unai Emery took the reins at Villa, and a glance at the teamsheet speaks volumes for the stability that has underpinned his success. Eight of Villa’s starting XI for that 1-1 draw could start against Forest on Thursday, when the Midlands clubs meet at the City Ground for the first instalment of an enticing all-Premier League Europa League semi-final. While there have been plenty of all-English finals, it is the first major European semi-final between English sides since Manchester United overcame Arsenal in the Champions League in 2009.
Ollie Watkins, who has hit double figures in each of his six seasons at Villa and believes his recent England omission restored the “fire in his belly”, is one of those who has lived the journey. “We have been through thick and thin together, highs and lows,” says Watkins. “The team is pretty much the same as when Dean Smith was here, apart from a few good additions. We can always count on each other and it is nice to have a core that has been together for numerous years. I think it is quite rare … it is nice because most teams have lots of changes and transfers, but we have kept the core and done really well.”
Emery has since been given the keys to the castle and empowering him with complete autonomy has proven a game-changer. Transformative does not do it justice. Structure has been crucial to Villa’s rise under Emery. Damian Vidagany, the director of football and in effect Emery’s eyes and ears, has been there every step of the way, and Roberto Olabe, the president of football operations, was another hand-picked appointment by Emery, who is hunting a record fifth Europa League title. Forest, meanwhile, have cycled through four managers across the past nine months, though the latest, Vítor Pereira, has proved something of a masterstroke. Premier League survival is in sight and the Europa League showpiece in Istanbul within reach.
For Forest, it is a fourth major European semi-final and first since 1984. “This week I went to the city centre and I saw the statue of the big manager at this club,” Pereira says of the tribute to Brian Clough off Old Market Square. “He did something fantastic that stays in the heart of these people until now, and for the new generations. We will try to do our best to emulate what he did.”
Forest are under pressure to stay up – Friday’s 5-0 win at Sunderland could yet prove pivotal in that fight – and such has been the focus, their owner Evangelos Marinakis’s priorities so explicit, they have been somewhat liberated in Europe. They blew away Fenerbahce in Pereira’s first game, a second string impressed at Midtjylland after losing the first leg, and they then overcame Porto in the quarter-finals, Morgan Gibbs-White scoring the decisive goal.
Villa will be their toughest test yet but Forest are in rude health. They held Villa to a 1-1 draw this month, Morgan Rogers and Watkins missing chances to take advantage of one of Forest’s flattest performances under Pereira. Forest are unbeaten in eight matches and, since Pereira’s arrival in February, they have scored more goals than anyone in the Premier League. Nobody has scored more than Gibbs-White’s 10 this calendar year, while Chris Wood’s return has allowed Pereira to shift approach and find joy with an orthodox 4-4-2.
Villa are on course to qualify for the Champions League for the second time in three seasons and this tie represents a third straight major semi-final in three years. The first, a Conference League tie against Olympiakos, another team in Marinakis’s stable, was supposed to segue into a final but ended with Villa on the wrong end of a 6-2 aggregate defeat synonymous with Ayoub El Kaabi running amok.
This time last season they were overawed by Crystal Palace in the FA Cup semi-finals, succumbing to a 3-0 defeat. Both of those occasions, in between which Villa pushed Paris Saint-Germain all the way in a pulsating Champions League quarter-final, have gnawed at Villa’s senior players. “They were big nights for us, big moments in which we haven’t delivered,” McGinn, the Villa captain, said in November. “We have that determination in the back of our heads to prove this team we have built over the past five or six years is worth more than a quarter-final, worth more than a semi-final. I think until we do that there will always be questions asked.”
Forest will play interrogators against Villa on Thursday and, if Emery’s side prevail, they will be favourites to end their 30-year trophy drought next month. “We have always hit a new milestone each year, but this year would definitely be the best season should we do that and cement the Champions League,” Watkins says. “That feeling of getting Champions League football a few years ago was unbelievable, but to lift a trophy ... personally I have never done it. A few of the boys have won trophies and I am very envious of them.”
