Aston Villa 3 Nottingham Forest 1
Back to winning ways for Villa. This was just the game Villa needed after getting beat by Arsenal on Tuesday and Forest really offered little threat for most of the match opting to defend and counter attack which didn’t work for Dyche’s side today. The returns of Kamara and Matty Cash were huge for Unai Emery today along with Ollie Watkins continuing his good form as of late with a brilliant strike from the edge of the box, John McGinn with the other 2 goals sealing a relatively comfortable win for Villa on the day against a Forest team devoid of confidence at the minute under Sean Dyche.
Aston Villa have one of the best midfields in the league. It’s been their greatest strength this season in my opinion with the midfield 3 of Kamara-Onana-Tielemans running most games for Villa and whilst Onana was absent in this game Rogers dropped into the number 10 with Kamara and Tielemans deeper giving Villa attack after attack eventually breaking down Forest at the end of the first half thanks to Ollie Watkins. It shows you don’t need to spend big to compete in the midfield with both Kamara and Tielemans coming in as free signings, Villa dominated Forest today and that’s down to the work that their midfield does to win the ball back and put Villa back on offence.
So so poor from Forest. I thought Nottingham Forest were terrible today getting dominated for the full 90 minutes and really struggling to get out when they won the ball back basically booting it back to the Villa defenders in the other half instead of trying to get out and attack Villa. It’s not like their players are incapable with the ball at their feet having the likes of Elliot Anderson and Morgan Gibbs-White who can keep the ball in tight spaces but they couldn’t get into the game today as the Forest defenders just cleared their lines when they got the chance. We know Dyche is a defensive manager but he has to find a way to platform his talented players into having more impact on matches for Forest if they are to stay up this year.
Ollie Watkins looks back to his best. This season has been a struggle for Ollie Watkins so far for a plethora of reasons but it looks as though he’s coming back to his best form, the goal today was out of the top drawer and a rarity for Watkins who usually scores in the box but it looked as though the shot took John Victor in the Forest net by surprise flying past him before he got set to give Forest a well deserved lead at the end of the first half. We know Watkins is a top striker and if Villa are to secure their place in the top 4 this season they are going to need him at his best banging in goals week after week.
Mistakes at the back cost Forest again. When Gibbs-White scored to get Forest back in the game it looked as though they might start to actually come out and try to attack Villa to get that equaliser but their momentum was halted by a disastrous error from their goalkeeper who came rushing out giving the ball to John McGinn who curled it into an empty net to seal the win for Villa, at a time when it looked like Forest could worry the Villa defence the keeper cost them the game and it looks like Matz Sels will be coming back into the starting 11 as John Victor had to be substituted after the goal due to an injury. Forest have to find a way to cut out these mistakes and start converting chances to try and get out of the relegation zone and that has to start in a six-pointer against West-Ham next week.