Aston Villa Faces Tough Defeat to Nottingham Forest
Tyrone Mings lay flat on the Villa Park turf at full-time, staring at the sky as if it might offer some answers. It didn’t. Aston Villa’s brutal start to the season rolled on with a 2-1 home defeat to Nottingham Forest that raised more questions than it answered and stripped away another layer of the aura around this ground.
Three defeats in four league games. One point on the board. A summer rebuild already under scrutiny. And if Coventry beat Brighton on Sunday, Unai Emery’s side will wake up bottom of the Premier League.
For a club that ended last season with a fourth-placed finish and a Europa League trophy, it feels like a violent jolt back to reality.
Villa’s fortress crumbles again
Villa finally snapped a 372-minute Premier League goal drought, but the relief was fleeting. The patterns are becoming familiar, and not in a good way. This is now the fourth time they’ve opened a top-flight campaign without a win in their first four games, joining the false starts of 1992-93, 1997-98 and 2025-26.
The contrast with May could hardly be sharper. Back then, Villa Park roared as they routed Forest in a Europa League semi-final and put four past Liverpool to clinch a Champions League place. Now, the same stadium feels anxious, half-muted and increasingly unforgiving.
Forest, by contrast, walked into a ground where they had not won a league game since 1994 and played like they owned it. Oliver Glasner, so often a thorn in Emery’s side, extended his unbeaten run against the Spaniard to eight matches. His first win as Forest boss will rank high on his personal list.
It was earned the hard way, too. Forest had 22 shots and 32 touches in the Villa box. They pressed, ran, harried, and when the game became stretched late on, they smelled blood.
Delap strikes, Villa wobble
The second half had barely begun when Villa were hit. Just 45 seconds after the restart, Liam Delap punished slack defending to fire Forest in front, a finish that underlined his resurgence and set the tone for what followed. He even had another goal ruled out, such was his dominance against a makeshift Villa backline.
Villa’s response was timid for long spells. Their attack spluttered, their passing lost its snap, and the anxiety in the stands seeped onto the pitch.
There was one moment of defiance. Against the run of play, Brazilian forward Alysson – on for his first real chance to impress in English football – glanced in John McGinn’s cross to level. A first goal in England, a lifeline for Villa, and for a brief spell, Villa Park believed in the old script: equaliser, pressure, late winner.
It never came.
Injuries, red-card anger and a late gut punch
Instead, the game unraveled for Emery. Pau Torres had already gone off in the first half, thinning an already stretched defence. Taylor Harwood-Bellis, a £30m summer signing, was again left out of the squad entirely, and Villa’s options at the back shrank by the minute.
Then came the moment that turned irritation into fury. Full-back Ian Maatsen, one of the brighter pieces of Villa’s rebuild, went down after a challenge from James McAtee. Maatsen tried to continue but couldn’t. With all substitutes used, Villa were down to 10 men. The early signs on his ankle are worrying, and Emery may have to turn to new signing Matteo Ruggeri sooner than planned.
Emery didn’t hide his anger at the incident, even as he refused to use it as a shield.
“Of course, they deserved it (the win), but the decision of the referee should be different,” he said. “After watching it on TV, I think the VAR should call the referee because it's a clear tackle behind the player and, for me, it should be a red card.”
He pointed to the contrast with Villa’s defeat at Brighton, where Joao Gomes saw red for two yellows that Villa “accepted”. This time, he felt the key call went against them, and the consequence was brutal: 10 men, a reshuffled backline, and Forest swarming forward.
The pressure finally told. With two minutes left, Igor Jesus darted in front of Aaron Wan-Bissaka to stab home the winner. A first Forest league victory at Villa Park in 30 years, sealed in front of a stunned Holte End.
Emery was blunt about what happened after the equaliser.
“When we equalised the match could change but we finished with Ian Maatsen injured and with 10 players, we conceded so many chances in the last minutes and they scored the second goal and deserved it,” he said. “But it's not an excuse how we play the second half. We played so so poor, and this is our work and our responsibility or my responsibility.”
Selection calls under the spotlight
Emery’s decisions will face scrutiny. Nicolas Jackson, booked early, was withdrawn at half-time because his manager feared a red card. On came Tammy Abraham – a striker Villa tried to move on in the summer – but he barely had a sniff.
Alysson at least made his mark with the header, but the cavalry from the bench could not turn the tide. Big-money pair Johan Manzambi and Ibrahim Mbaye, signed for a combined £98m, arrived in the second half yet struggled to alter the rhythm of a game Forest controlled for long stretches.
There was more frustration in attack. A chaotic goalmouth scramble saw Victor Lindelof somehow fail to score, denied by a mix of Matz Sels, Murillo and the post. Beyond that, Villa created little of substance.
Alejandro Garnacho, on loan from Chelsea, watched it all from the bench again. Still unused, still unconvinced his manager he deserves a role in this evolving side.
Villa Park’s aura fading
What once felt like a fortress is starting to look fragile. Villa went 12 months unbeaten at home in the league before Glasner’s former club Crystal Palace walked in last August and won 3-0. Since then, the cracks have widened.
Last season they lost four of their final 15 home league games. They needed late goals to scrape a point against Leeds and edge past Brighton and Sunderland. A 3-1 FA Cup exit to Newcastle exposed more weaknesses, and this campaign has opened with a 1-0 defeat to champions Arsenal followed by this latest blow from Forest.
There are caveats. The North Stand redevelopment has cut capacity and left one end without fans, dulling the noise and the intimidation factor. Several key players have gone, a new squad is still bedding in, and injuries are biting hard.
But the drop-off at home is now impossible to ignore.
So often under Emery, a Villa equaliser has been the trigger for a siege, a late winner, a night that ends in noise and relief. Here, the opposite happened. Villa lost their shape, lost control and, in their manager’s words, played “so so poor” when it mattered most.
“I don't know why,” Emery admitted. “I want to see the match again and to understand why we lost our shape.”
He will not enjoy that rewatch. Forest’s players celebrated with their away fans, Glasner savoured a landmark win, and Jesus walked off as the match-winner. Emery, the man who has solved so many problems since arriving at Villa, suddenly finds himself searching again.
Next up: a Carabao Cup trip to Coventry on Wednesday, then Tottenham away. The questions are piling up. How long before Villa start to resemble the side that terrified opponents here last season, rather than the one now being picked apart in their own backyard?
