Aston Villa and Nottingham Forest meet again for the Europa League semi-final second leg with a place in the final on the line.
The Tricky Trees carry a 1-0 lead into the match against their Midlands rivals, but Vitor Pereira’s men will be under no illusions that they are guaranteed a place in the final.
For Villa, things did not get much better following last Thursday’s defeat. A 2-1 loss at home to relegation-threatened Tottenham did little to lift spirits inside Villa Park.
That was compounded further by Forest’s huge win at Stamford Bridge, despite losing Morgan Gibbs-White to a head injury.
You can find all the team news, as well as match updates tonight, right here on 101GreatGoals.
Table of Contents
Aston Villa team news
Aston Villa starting XI: Martinez, Cash, Konsa, Pau, Digne, Tielemans, Lindelof, McGinn, Buendia, Rogers, Watkins
Aston Villa substitutes: Bizot, Wright, Bogarde, Maatsen, Mings, Garcia, Luiz, Bailey, Elliott, Sancho, Abraham
Nottingham Forest team news
Nottingham Forest starting XI: Ortega, Williams, Morato, Anderson, Wood, Dominguez, Jesus, Hutchinson, Cunha, McAtee, Milenkovic
Nottingham Forest substitutes: Sels, Willows, Murillo, Sangare, Gibbs-White, Ndoye, Lucca, Yates, Bakwa, Whitehall, Sinclair, Hanks
Where to watch Aston Villa v Nottingham Forest: TV and online streams
Aston Villa v Nottingham Forest kicks off at 8pm on Thursday. It will be broadcast on TNT Sports 1 and available to stream via HBO Max. Sky subscribers with a TNT package can also stream the game via Sky Go.
Stats for Aston Villa v Nottingham Forest
- Villa are unbeaten in each of their last 10 meetings with Forest at Villa Park across all competitions (W7 D3), since a 2-0 loss in the Premier League in October 1994 under Ron Atkinson.
- Forest are unbeaten in each of their three European games against fellow English opposition, keeping a clean sheet each time (W2 D1) – their only previous away match was at Anfield versus Liverpool in the 1978-79 European Cup first round, which ended in a 0-0 draw.
- Villa have won each of their last nine home games in major European competition, since a 0-0 draw with Juventus in last season’s UEFA Champions League; they have also scored in 31 of their last 32 matches at Villa Park in such competitions, with that goalless draw the lone exception.
- Forest are looking to reach a third major European final after the 1978-79 and 1979-80 European Cups – they have only been eliminated from one of their last 13 knockout stage ties when winning the first leg, with that defeat coming in the 1983-84 UEFA Cup semi-final against Anderlecht.
- Villa are aiming to reach a second major European final, after the 1981-82 European Cup; the last team to overturn a first leg deficit in a major European tie against an opponent from the same nation as them were Atletico Madrid vs Barcelona in the 2015-16 UEFA Champions League quarter-finals (1- 2 away 1st leg, 2-0 home 2nd leg).
- No team have recorded more clean sheets in the 2025-26 UEFA Europa League than both Villa and Forest (7), both keeping a joint-high three in the knockout stages.
- Villa manager Unai Emery has only once before lost both legs of a knockout stage tie in the UEFA Cup/Europa League, with Valencia against Atletico Madrid in the 2011-12 semi-finals. That was the last two-legged tie the Spaniard was eliminated from in this competition, progressing from 22 in a row since.
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