Nottingham Forest’s Europa League campaign is over, ended by a 4-0 defeat at Villa Park on Thursday that wiped out the one-goal advantage they had built in the first leg, with head coach Vitor Pereira pointing to an injury list that included Super Eagles defender Ola Aina as the reason his side could not put up a fight, Footynaija.com reports.
Forest went to Birmingham having done the hard part. Chris Wood’s penalty seven days earlier at the City Ground had given them a 1-0 first-leg lead and positioned them as the side with the upper hand heading into the return fixture.
But the squad Pereira named at Villa Park was barely recognisable from the one that had earned that advantage.
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Aina, who had been withdrawn in the closing stages of the first leg with a knock, was unavailable. So were Morgan Gibbs-White, Ibrahim Sangare, Murillo, Callum Hudson-Odoi and Dan Ndoye. Six first-team regulars absent for a European semi-final, and the gaps were filled by players who had no business being in this kind of fixture.
‘Three injured players on the bench’
Pereira did not dress it up after the final whistle.
“Aina, out. Morgan out. Sangare, out. Murillo, out. Callum, out. Ndoye, out,” he listed in his post-match comments.
“To bring the full squad we put three injured players on the bench, and we brought three more players from the academy. To compete in a game in these conditions, after a game against Chelsea, and play in a semi-final is not possible. This is why I said we were not able to compete.”
On the pitch, it showed. Aston Villa were relentless from the first whistle. Ollie Watkins broke the deadlock in the 36th minute, finishing off a brilliant assist from Emiliano Buendia.
The Argentine then converted a penalty on the hour after Nikola Milenkovic’s foul on Pau Torres. John McGinn sealed it with two goals in the 77th and 80th minutes, the second a finish of real quality that sent Villa Park into delirium.
Forest had no answer. The depleted visitors looked exactly like a side running on empty, outpaced and outnumbered in every department.
Aston Villa advance to the Europa League final in Istanbul on May 20, where they will face Bundesliga side Freiburg. For Forest, the focus shifts back to the Premier League and a survival battle that still has plenty to play for.
