Here’s Pete Lansley’s report from the City Ground.
Updated
Unai Emery, quoted by the BBC: “We played in the gameplan and did fantastic in the first 70 minutes and scored one goal. We were trying to stop them in the high press but they are not pushing up and we are more or less doing this in the beginning. When we scored they pushed more and made changes. We tried to be consistent and then we did not do that in the last 20 minutes and we conceded the goals - one offside - but if we do that we won’t be in the top eight.”
Anthony Elanga spoke to Sky: “I feel like this season for me I can do better. I am a good finisher and I need to get in the positions. The team did really well today and credit to Villa, it was a good game.
“As a football player, you want to play every game and when you don’t, you want to make an impact. It was hard to break them down and we had that space in behind.
“We work on in training the different types of movements and looking at it now, it is a good finish. Credit to Martinez. I think he had a great game and made that great save, but we got past him in the end.”
Forest up to fourth – above Manchester City
| Pos | Team | P | GD | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Liverpool | 15 | 18 | 36 |
| 2 | Chelsea | 15 | 17 | 31 |
| 3 | Arsenal | 16 | 14 | 30 |
| 4 | Nottm Forest | 16 | 2 | 28 |
| 5 | Man City | 15 | 6 | 27 |
| 6 | Aston Villa | 16 | -1 | 25 |
| 7 | Brighton | 15 | 3 | 24 |
| 8 | AFC Bournemouth | 15 | 3 | 24 |
| 9 | Fulham | 16 | 2 | 24 |
| 10 | Brentford | 15 | 3 | 23 |
| 11 | Newcastle | 16 | 2 | 23 |
| 12 | Tottenham Hotspur | 15 | 12 | 20 |
| 13 | Man Utd | 15 | 1 | 19 |
| 14 | West Ham | 15 | -8 | 18 |
| 15 | Everton | 15 | -7 | 15 |
| 16 | Leicester | 16 | -13 | 14 |
| 17 | Crystal Palace | 15 | -6 | 13 |
| 18 | Ipswich | 16 | -12 | 12 |
| 19 | Wolverhampton | 16 | -16 | 9 |
| 20 | Southampton | 15 | -20 | 5 |
Updated
Tim Pearson: “It’s gone from a first half of eighteenth century snooze to a second half John Grisham thriller!”
Full-time: Nottingham Forest 2-1 Aston Villa
A comeback win that shows the spirit of Forest under Nuno. They responded so well to decisions going against them and Jhon Duran’s goal. Anthony Elanga has been the man to make the difference. A dreadful first half followed by a brilliant second half, and a fantastic result for Forest.
90+8 min: The ball falls to McGinn, and he can only blast it over. The Forest fans smell victory.
90+6 min: Villa are being patient in possession. Forest all back in a line, heavy numbers back.
90+4 min: Willy Boly comes on as Forest’s closer. This is a famous, important win in the offing. Villa have tired, visibly, sapped as Wood scored his disallowed goal.
Goal! Nottingham Forest 2-1 Aston Villa (Elanga, 90+3)
Anderson wins the ball off Cash, and in the box. Was it a foul? Elanga has read the danger and smashes home. Forest are flying up to fourth!
Updated
90+2 min: Space at both ends but Forest look to have the more energy….
90 min: Late subs see Barkley and Maatsen come on. Seven minutes have been added on to for them to make an impact.
89 min: But wait a moment, Sels has to clear the ball behind, as McGinn’s cross arrows towards goal. Sels then punches clear the resultant corner. Was there a push? Gibbs-White and Konsa clashed but only briefly.
88 min: Fuelled by injustice, Forest have pushed on and on. Nuno’s team have real fortitude…
Goal! Nottingham Forest 1-1 Aston Villa (Milenkovic, 87)
Pau Torres knocks behind, and Forest have a corner. Digne clears. This time, it comes back in, and Milenkovic nods in, crashing home. What a ball from Gibbs-White, Martinez ended up dropping the ball in the net. What a comeback from Forest.
Updated
85 min: The howls of noise. There’s grown men in Christmas jumpers calling the Premier League into question. Meanwhile, the Villa fans sing a hymn to VAR. Modern football, it’s great, isn’t it?
Goal ruled out...still 1-0 to Villa!
It’s a long, long wait. Diego Carlos looks to be playing on Elanga, and the boos ring out…it’s offside. A primal scream of rage greets the decision.
Goal! Nottingham Forest 1-1 Aston Villa (Wood, 82)
Cash volleys across from the byline and Forest can only beat the ball away. But it turns into a wildcat attack. Hudson-Odoi threads to Gibbs-White, across to Elanga, and to Wood, who scores….there’s a VAR wait, to boos.
Updated
79 min: Elanga is fouled, and a free-kick comes in, and Gibbs-White nods across but Martinez cradles the ball in his hands with ease.
78 min: Elanga on, Dominguez off for Forest. Nuno has tried to inject some pace.
77 min: Rogers and Anderson has been an intriguing individual battle. Both going at it, Rogers having the better of it.
75 min: Some really nice stuff being played by Villa now. Passing it around. Forest look a bit leggy. One of these teams was playing in Leipzig on Wednesday.
73 min: Duran is off, and on comes Watkins. Duran looks as if he wouldn’t have minded completing the 90.
71 min: Villa have toughed this out. Forest are a hard, physical team. McGinn, who likes the rough stuff, gets tangled up with Ola Aina. Duran’s header was a beauty.
Updated
70 min: Jack B on the former Damian Martinez: “RE Arsenal selling Martinez, with hindsight you might say they should have kept hold. But remember he’d been a benchwarmer for almost a decade, then Maupay injures Leno and Martinez gets a run. He does pretty well and suddenly the player who had no prospects is getting big bids. Arsenal would have been over the moon to be getting 20 million of pure FFP profit for him, with absolutely no guarantee that he was just in a few months burst of form before dropping back to his mid-table Championship quality level he’d shown before.”
68 min: Forest changes: Jota Silva and Morato on, Murillo and Ryan Yates off.
67 min: The City Ground in its usual rebellion against officialdom as Hudson-Odoi looks to be fouled by Duran. The replay suggests otherwise.
65 min: Ken Houghton: “The dude from Dexy’s Midnight Runners? Did they have more than one hit on your side of the pond?” They had several, Ken. Geno was No 1, as was Eileen but the first two albums were huge hits. And the third, Don’t Stand Me Down, is a legendary brilliant flop. They’re still around, too.
64 min: And that goal doesn’t happen without Emi Martinez’s brilliance.
Goal! Nottingham Forest 0-1 Aston Villa (Duran, 63)
Of course, of course. He starts, he scores. Rogers’ run leads the ball to McGinn and a dinked ball is headed like thunder past Sels. What a player Duran is.
Updated
61 min: Arsenal selling Martinez: will never understand that one.
60 min: Hudson-Odoi is knocked over by Konsa, and the Forest fans boo the officials. It’s a corner instead…and Dominguez stoops. It’s surely going over but Martinez stops it going over. He seems to do this save every week, when they are near-miracles. Forest can’t believe it.
Updated
59 min: Ollie Watkins was fit enough to be on the bench. Villa need something to change here. They’ve been blunt aside from the odd Duran flourish.
57 min: Hudson-Odoi and Nico Williams take up the cudgels, both run into traffic. Williams’ shot whistles wide.
55 min: Scott Blair gets in touch: “Well, if we’re going down this road...there was a bit of Brian Clough in Robert Lowell….”
54 min: Duran throws in a fresh-air effort, and then his overhead is perfectly executed aside from being just over. He fits the term “mercurial, the lad”.
52 min: Villa are at least trying to step matters up.
50 min: Mark Turner calls it: “A fascinating tactical battle, Brian.”
Yeah, it’s still awful.
49 min: Today’s Premier League, at a glance.
48 min: It’s still physical, John McGinn legging up Ola Aina but not getting booked for what looked like preventing a counter.
47 min: To continue the game’s early 1980s overtones – and style:
I never heard about Oscar Wilde
I don’t talk about Brendan Behan
I don’t think about Sean O’Casey
I don’t care about George Bernard Shaw
He doesn’t care about Samuel Beckett
He won’t talk about Eugene O’Neill
Edna O’Brien and Laurence Sterne
Oscar Wilde and Brendan Behan
Sean O’Casey, George Bernard Shaw
Samuel Beckett, Eugene O’Neill
Edna O’Brien and Laurence Sterne
Sean Kavanaugh and Sean McCann
Benedict Keilly, Jimmy Hiney
Frank O’Connor and Catherine Rhine
(Thanks to Kevin Rowland)
We're back underway
46 min: *Des Lynam look to camera*. Oh yes, there’s a game on while we discuss the literature of the Enlightenment and beyond. We begin with Jhon Duran getting hobbled by Murillo.
David C Hunter: “Naughty John Bruton, detention for you. Thackeray was the rival to Dickens. For a non-rival to Sterne try Samuel Richardson. Plenty of dull passages there.”
Mary Waltz: “Nothing happening? C’mon, Tristram waxing eloquent about his nose is nothing if not action packed!”
Geoff Wignall gets in touch: “Thackeray’s novels might well have meandered interminably but I doubt he wrote many 18th century ones - on account of being born in 1811.”
Yeah, I noticed that but he is byword for ramblings, right?
Half-time: Nottingham Forest 0-0 Aston Villa
It’s not been great, but it’s been even. Neither manager prepared to bet the farm, and the flair players have been quiet.
45+1 min: Three minutes added on, and it continues to be bitty,
45 min; Sels makes his first save, this time from Cash.
43 min: All Villa. They have a head of steam but not much creativityt happening.
42 min: Murillo is back, and then gets in the way of a Rogers pass. Tielemans tries to send Cash away but Villa instead break.
40 min: Rogers, having his breakout season, is playing well. Murillo is down for Forest, holding his foot. That hurt. And it could be it for the Brazilian.
39 min: Villa go closest yet. McGinn chip, and Konsa’s header drifts wide.
37 min: How did Anderson get away with that shirt pull on Rogers? We will never know unless we watch that show with Howie Webb and Magic Mike Owen.
36 min: This time, Anderson stops Rogers by fairer means and zips the ball upfield to Wood. Neat touch – for a big man – inside Carlos but the shot is stopped.
34 min: Villa on the attack, it’s been a while. Was Rogers pulled down by Anderson? Some shirts being pulled. The ball stays live and if VAR is looking we will soon know. The check is complete. Anderson a bit lucky there.
Updated
32 min: Tim Pearson: “This game has been like an eighteenth century novel so far—nothing really happening for page after page, chapter after chapter.”
Tristram Shandy? Thackeray? That type of thing?
31 min: Anderson’s ball hang and Murillo really might have done better.
30 min: Villa back in shape now, Forest need Anderson to go on a solo run, and his shot is deflected. Corner ball, and he will take.
28 min: Better from Forest, it has has to be said. And that may open up space for Villa, too. The gloom is at last lifting.
27 min: The ball is chipped to the back post from Gibbs-White. Only Dominguez there to reach it, and a host of Villa players. Forest get a free-kick and Murillo is too elaborate for his colleagues.
25 min: Tielemans sets up Duran, then Cash and McGinn both have a swing at the ball.
24 min: Chris Wood gets crowded out. Not much doing for the big man.
22 min: Anderson and Hudson-Odoi try to force something, and it really is forcing it. No flow to either attack. Not a great advert for the midland powerhouse, this. Hudson-Odoi’s cross comes in, and is headed away. Konza eventually clears Villa lines.
20 min: Big noise from both fans. It’s that time of year. The football has been rather lacking in glitter. Yates, recovered, has a shot. It ends up somewhere in the forecourt behind the stand.
18 min: Duran gets his first shot on goal and it would have been miraculous if that went in. Neither team looking too capable of anything here so far.
15 min: Yates needs treatment but seems ok to continue. This has been fairly forgettable so far.
12 min: Ryan Yates, the Forest captain, has taken a knock. So has Morgan Rogers. There’s a few players showing the wear and tear of the heavy schedule.
9 min: Unai Emery patrols the touchline, his hangdog expression always reminding of Steve Coogan as Mr Hennety. His team have dominated possession but getting little change.
8 min: Few tackles going in. Matz Selz, the Forest keeper, looks hurt and then Duran takes a kick.
7 min: Forest – as you would expect with a Nuno team – are keeping their shape.
Bogdan gets in touch: “I am not a fan of either of these two teams but the fact is that they have, combined, been crowned the European champions three times. So this is a match between two clubs that are probably bigger than anyone thinks in the first place, two teams whose tradition and history must be respected.”
Both teams have had wilderness periods since but on visiting them, you are left in no doubt over how big clubs they are. Love visiting both, actually.
5 min: Villa are dominant in possession, Forest sitting back, with Chris Wood going back to help out. Hudson-Odoi fails to keep the ball in when a counter beckoned.
4 min: Gibbs-White and Anderson link but the ball into the centre is no test for Martinez.
3 min: Morgan Rogers’ blonde hair – is that new? “I’ll have the Abel Xavier, please.” Villa doing most of the pushing on.
Mull of Kintyre means we are go go go in Notts
1 min: High stakes for a midlands derby, and that makes a nice change. It’s been a few decades since that was a regular thing. Jhon Duran, 21 yesterday, gets an early touch.
Welcome to the Jungle rings out and it’s showtime at the City Ground.
Updated
Late news: Pau Torres is back in, with Tyrone Mings feeling ill in the warm-up.
Nottingham Forest: Matz Sels, Ola Aina, Murillo, Nikola Milenkovic, Neco Williams, Ryan Yates, Callum Hudson-Odoi, Elliot Anderson, Morgan Gibbs-White, Nicolas Dominguez, Chris Wood.
Subs: Morato, Taiwo Awoniyi, Harry Toffolo, James Ward-Prowse, Jota Silva, Anthony Elanga, Ramon Sosa, Willy-Arnaud Boly, Carlos Miguel.
Aston Villa: Emiliano Martinez, Matty Cash, Diego Carlos, Ezri Konsa, Pau Torres, Lucas Digne, John McGinn, Youri Tielemans, Morgan Rogers, Boubacar Kamara, Jhon Duran.
Subs: Ross Barkley, Emiliano Buendia, Ollie Watkins, Kosta Nedeljkovic, Ian Maatsen, Amadou Onana, Lamare Bogarde, Robin Olsen.
Those results make this a battle of fifth versus sixth.
| Pos | Team | P | GD | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Liverpool | 15 | 18 | 36 |
| 2 | Chelsea | 15 | 17 | 31 |
| 3 | Arsenal | 16 | 14 | 30 |
| 4 | Man City | 15 | 6 | 27 |
| 5 | Nottm Forest | 15 | 1 | 25 |
| 6 | Aston Villa | 15 | 0 | 25 |
| 7 | Brighton | 15 | 3 | 24 |
| 8 | AFC Bournemouth | 15 | 3 | 24 |
| 9 | Fulham | 16 | 2 | 24 |
| 10 | Brentford | 15 | 3 | 23 |
| 11 | Newcastle | 16 | 2 | 23 |
| 12 | Tottenham Hotspur | 15 | 12 | 20 |
| 13 | Man Utd | 15 | 1 | 19 |
| 14 | West Ham | 15 | -8 | 18 |
| 15 | Everton | 15 | -7 | 15 |
| 16 | Leicester | 16 | -13 | 14 |
| 17 | Crystal Palace | 15 | -6 | 13 |
| 18 | Ipswich | 16 | -12 | 12 |
| 19 | Wolverhampton | 16 | -16 | 9 |
| 20 | Southampton | 15 | -20 | 5 |
The Saturday 3pms are done, and a couple of surprising results.
One change from Forest’s glorious defeat of Manchester United, and that’s Dominguez in for Jota. For Villa, Duran starts as expected, and Pau Torres is replaced by Tyrone Mings.
The teams - Duran starts
Nottingham Forest: Matz Sels, Ola Aina, Murillo, Nikola Milenkovic, Neco Williams, Ryan Yates, Callum Hudson-Odoi, Elliot Anderson, Morgan Gibbs-White, Nicolas Dominguez, Chris Wood.
Subs: Morato, Taiwo Awoniyi, Harry Toffolo, James Ward-Prowse, Jota Silva, Anthony Elanga, Ramon Sosa, Willy-Arnaud Boly, Carlos Miguel.
Aston Villa: Emiliano Martinez, Matty Cash, Diego Carlos, Ezri Konsa, Tyrone Mings, Lucas Digne, John McGinn, Youri Tielemans, Morgan Rogers, Boubacar Kamara, Jhon Duran.
Subs: Ross Barkley, Emiliano Buendia, Ollie Watkins, Pau Torres, Kosta Nedeljkovic, Ian Maatsen, Amadou Onana, Lamare Bogarde, Robin Olsen.
Quiz time, and it’s a difficult one.
Early team news.
Alex Moreno cannot play for Forest as he is a Villa loanee.
Ollie Watkins is a doubt so we could see Jhon Duran making another start after his winner last week against Southampton.
Preamble
Aston Villa, whose form looked to have slipped, look to have refound their mojo, with a big win in Leipzig to celebrate to follow two Premier League wins that were much-needed. Nottingham Forest are hunting in the territory Villa aspire to, Nuno hailed as a miracle worker in the East Midlands. Two former European Cup winners where the good times have rolled around once again, this could be a pre-Christmas cracker.
Kick-off is 5.30pm. Join me.
