Unai Emery’s one-word Nottingham Forest plan will play right into Nuno Espirito Santo’s hands

Add as preferred source on Google

Aston Villa will know that a victory over Nottingham Forest is crucial to their chances of qualifying for the Champions League, with nine points separating the sides.

The previous meeting between the two came in December when Forest fans hailed Anthony Elanga for his stoppage-time goal that secured all three points at the City Ground from a losing position.

Hilariously, Evangelos Marinakis was seen smashing a TV screen in celebration of the dramatic Elanga goal, which gave Forest a second victory in their run of six successive wins to catapult the Reds into the Champions League positions.

Position	Team	Played MP	Won W	Drawn D	Lost L	For GF	Against GA	Diff GD	Points Pts
1	LiverpoolLiverpool	30	22	7	1	70	27	43	73
2	ArsenalArsenal	30	17	10	3	55	25	30	61
3	Nottm ForestNottingham Forest	30	17	6	7	50	35	15	57
4	ChelseaChelsea	30	15	7	8	54	37	17	52
5	Man CityManchester City	30	15	6	9	57	40	17	51
6	NewcastleNewcastle	29	15	5	9	49	39	10	50
7	Aston VillaAston Villa	30	13	9	8	44	45	-1	48

Villa have improved since then and have won six in a row themselves, bolstered for Saturday by Marcus Rashford’s strong record against Forest. However, their manager, Unai Emery has made a suggestion about his game plan to combat Nuno Espirito Santo’s side that might come back to haunt him.

Unai Emery wants his side to ‘dominate’ Nottingham Forest

Espirito Santo will be in a buoyant mood going into the trip to Villa Park after the Forest manager won the Premier League’s Manager of the Month for the third time in this incredible season.

Undoubtedly, Espirito Santo will be in the Manager of the Year conversation but will first need to get past Emery on Saturday, a coach who clearly admires the work he sees at Forest.

Speaking to Aston Villa’s website, Emery said: “[Espirito Santo is] Fantastic. Not now, in his career as a coach, especially here in England. Wolverhampton, he played fantastic football, being very, very competitive, they [Wolves] achieved playing in Europe as well.

“Now, after, he was coming back again to Premier League last year, progressively getting better, and this year really fantastic, how they are competing, how they are playing, how they are beating a lot of teams, getting points, doing the difference in the table with a lot of teams.”

Of course, the Spaniard will want to best Espirito Santo despite the flatteries. On this task on Saturday, Emery added: [I] Respect them a lot. Of course, after this respect, to analyse deeply how we can play tomorrow more or less trying to impose, to dominate, to play better than them, to get individual performances as better as possible.”

This plan to ‘dominate’ is something the Forest coaching staff hear every week and it never seems to come to fruition. But in the reverse fixture in December, it was actually the Reds who controlled proceedings.

Aston Villa failed to ‘dominate’ Nottingham Forest in December

Seeing that Espirito Santo hailed Willy Boly for his performance against Villa, you might think that Forest produced a backs-to-the-wall counterattacking display in December, but the stats from the match indicate the opposite.

Rarely this season have Forest shared possession evenly, often giving up the ball in favour of breaking at pace but against Villa, they had an equal split which led to over double the shots.

These shots allowed Forest to dominate the xG in the game too, whilst the effort off the ball was also highlighted by Forest’s lead in duels won.

You’d think that Villa are capable of dominating possession against Espirito Santo’s side on Saturday, but December’s win at the City Ground highlights that the Reds will take some stopping to see Emery’s plan for the match play out.