Europa League: Premier Duo Are Up for the Cup

Nottingham Forest vs Aston Villa

One Premier League club will make it to the Europa League final in Istanbul this year, and this week Nottingham Forest and Aston Villa will battle out their much-anticipated semi-final first leg.    

Vitor Pereira’s Nottingham Forest will take on Unai Emery’s Aston Villa at the City ground on Thursday, before they play the second leg at Villa Park, the prize being a final against either SC Freiburg or Braga on May 20^th at the home of Besiktas. Last year it was Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester United who contested the Europa final, Spurs coming out on top in Bilbao.

This time around one of the Premier League’s Midland clubs will make the final, its East versus West and the East’s representatives, Forest, will hope to put down a marker on their home turf. They have been in a fierce relegation battle and are not yet out of the woods, but under Pereira Nottingham Forest have picked up their form just at the right time and they are set to face a Villa side which is on course for Champions League football next term.           

 

Talking Points

Forest’s season could end up just fine

Now this SBOTOP writer has been one of Nottingham Forest’s ownership’s biggest critics, stunned by the decision to sack Nuno Espirito Santo just three weeks into the season due to a public spat between the manager and owner Evangelos Marinakis. The Greek magnate appointed Ange Postecoglou to take over and he lasted 39 days. Former Burnley manager and Forest player Sean Dyche was next in line, and he lasted considerably longer, 114 days in total, and then Forest appointed Pereira in February, and the latest move seems to have worked.

The East Midlanders are the first Premier League club to appoint four permanent managers in one campaign, but it looks like it might end up pretty well. A 5-0 drubbing of Sunderland last Friday meant Forest stayed five points above the drop zone and that win made it ten points from four games, including a 4-1 win over Burnley, a 3-0 beating of Spurs and a 1-1 draw with Villa. It looks like Forest will have enough to survive, and they now have a good chance of winning a European crown, if they can see off Villa.

Perreira’s men battled to a 2-1 aggregate win over FC Porto to reach the semi-final and followed that up with the back-to-back wins over Burnley and Sunderland, scoring nine goals and conceding one. The thrashing of the Black cats saw three key players making their mark. The returning Chris Wood was on target, Morgan Gibbs-White scored one and made an assist and the excellent Elliot Anderson rounded off the scoring.

This is a team playing with the confidence of last season, when they qualified for Europe in the first place.       

 

Villa targets an impressive double  

With a top five place on the cards, Aston Villa are currently eight points clear of Brighton and Hove Albion in sixth, Emery has been able to prioritise Europa League 2026 results in recent weeks and they came through the quarter finals impressively, beating Serie A side Bologna 3-1 away and 4-0 at home and the latest Europa League 2026 betting odds make Villa the hot favourites to win the tournament.

Emery rotated his squad for a recent clash with Sunderland and got away with it, winning 4-3, but the Villans fell to a 1-0 loss to Fulham last week.

To finish in a Champions League place, after coming so close last term, and adding a Europa crown would be a serious achievement, and Emery is a master in the competition with a record number of Europa League titles as a manager, three with Sevilla and a fourth with Villarreal. And with OIlie Watkins back in form, with six goals in the last six games, Villa are scoring for fun, with Morgan Rogers and skipper John McGinn providing plenty of ammunition for the likes of Watkins and Tammy Abraham.              

 

History

With nine wins, nine draws and four defeats Aston Villa have had the better of the past 22 encounters with Forest, while at the City Ground, the home side has won four, drawn two and lost six. When the two teams met in Nottingham earlier in April they played out a 1-1 draw as Neco Williams cancelled out a Murillo own goal.    

Both teams are in good form, the hosts have won four and lost two of their last six games while their visitors have won four, drawn one and lost one.     

 

Betting Tip

Forest are at 2.45 to win this first leg with the Draw at 3.10 and Villa at 2.82 to take a lead at the halfway stage. It’s going to be an entertaining clash I’m sure and, with both teams full of goals I’m backing three or more by the final whistle on Thursday night.    

   

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