Match Report: Aston Villa 4-0 Nottingham Forest

Aston Villa are through to their first European final in 44 years after they beat Nottingham Forest 4-0 at Villa Park to go through 4-1 up on aggregate.

Unai Emery’s side put on a dominant display at Villa Park with Ollie Watkins, Emiliano Buendia and  two goals in three minutes from captain John McGinn to cap off a stellar performance.

Forest showed some early threat to the home side as they came close in the ninth minute as a great ball from James McAtee found Omari Hutchinson who cut inside and saw his shot go just wide of the post.

However after this Villa started to gain a stronghold in the game with multiple chances for Youri Tielemans who’s best effort came from 25 yards out where his long range effort came close in the 33rd minute.

After strong pressure from the Villains they finally broke the deadlock in the 36th after Buendia showed great skill down the left hand side before firing the ball across the six yard box to find Watkins who smashed in his effort from three yards out to send Villa Park wild.

Villa continued to dominate until half time with the away side only managing to have one shot on target in the first half. This theme continued into the second half with Nottingham Forest manager Vitor Pereira unable to change the tide for his side.

As in the 55th minute defender Nikola Milenkovic pulled the shirt of Spanish international Pau Torres and after being sent to the screen by VAR the referee awarded a penalty. Continuing his great performance from the first half Buendia cooly slotted away the penalty past the outstretched forest goalkeeper Stefan Ortega to double the lead for the hosts.

Villa were too much for Forest as the atmosphere increased at Villa Park the game was only going one way as with ten minutes to go John McGinn would secure the win for the home side with two virtually identical goals into the bottom corner to win the game for his side and to send them to the Europa League final.

Aston Villa will now travel to Istanbul to play Freiburg in the Europa League final on the 20th May where they will look to once again find European glory.