Aston Villa suffer first setback in all-English Europa semi as players prove Emery wrong
The last time Aston Villa faced an Evangelos Marinakis-owned team on its fourth manager of the season in the semi-final of a European competition, it did not go well.
Villa, by Unai Emery’s own admission the tournament favourites, were beaten in both legs of their tie with Olympiacos in May 2024, with Jose Luis Mendilibar new-manager-bouncing his way to a comfortable victory.
Emery advised his players to “learn and take positives from” the experience, but history might be about to repeat itself.
The momentum ahead of next Thursday’s all-English showdown is certainly in favour of Nottingham Forest after this round of weekend results. Vitor Pereira’s side are on an eight-game unbeaten run and have scored nine goals in the process of dispatching their last two opponents.
Villa’s response to Forest’s 5-0 thrashing of Sunderland on Friday evening was a meek, uninspired defeat to Fulham in which they mustered a single shot on target.
It made for a stark contrast. The context of Forest fighting for Premier League survival is not lost, but as Emery said before 90 forgettable minutes at Craven Cottage: “Hopefully we keep our position, fighting as well with Manchester United, with Liverpool, with Brighton and Chelsea for the top five position. We are there and of course it’s a strong objective we can have. We are not thinking of the Europa League that we are going to play in this Thursday – the focus is completely 100% today.”
That messaging was doubtless reiterated in the build-up to the game, again in the dressing room before kick off and even at half time. But these were players with at least one eye on the next game.
Fulham are not the kindest opponents in that sense, and this was a continuation of Villa’s poor away form which last saw them win on the road in the Premier League against Newcastle in January.
Yet opportunities to either impress or build some energy going into the Forest game were squandered.
Matty Cash and Lucas Digne were substandard at both ends. Lamare Bogarde did not impress in Amadou Onana’s injury-enforced absence. Morgan Rogers, Emi Buendia and Ollie Watkins posed almost precisely no problem for Fulham. And not even a quadruple substitution could stir a deeply distracted team.
Emery said his players were “very demanding of ourselves”, “motivated” and “excited” to “play to win” but only the hosts embodied that determination. A lead granted to them by Ryan Sessegnon’s rebound from Raul Jimenez’s header after an excellent Timothy Castagne cross and run was rarely threatened.
For Villa to be distracted by a looming European semi-final is perhaps not forgivable but at least explicable. It is not the sort of thing Emery will be content with, and their results immediately before, during and after the Olympiacos semi-final two years ago being a draw, a defeat and a draw does suggest something of a sidetracked theme.
The curious element of this semi-final drawing them against a team they are 12 places and 16 points higher than, who they have beaten and drawn to already this season, does elevate the stakes even further.
But Forest go into that game with a supreme confidence Villa cannot simply manufacture. This compliant defeat will be forgotten with a win for Emery’s side, but exacerbated by any other result.
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