Late goals from Nikola Milenkovic and Anthony Elanga secured victory for Nottingham Forest in this battle of the former European Cup winners and lifed them above Manchester City into the Champions League places.
Forest continued their best start to a season for three decades as they came back from Jhon Durán’s opening goal for Villa, who are now winless in their last five Premier League games that have followed their Champions League matches.
So Forest, celebrating their 5,000th league fixture, can claim fourth place, at least until City play Manchester United on Sunday afternoon. Building on their remarkable victories at Anfield and Old Trafford this season, Nuno Espírito Santo has led them to eight league wins already this season. Last season, that took them until their 36th game.
The old City Ground was rocking to its core as, after a tight first period in which Nuno’s tactics helped negate Villa’s strengths, Forest’s spirit took them to new heights. Finishing in the top four might be stretching credulity but they are there on merit right now.
After Durán headed in his 11th goal of the season, Forest thought they had equalised in the 81st minute when it took the video assistant refeee almost three minutes to determine that Elanga was half a shoulder offside as he ran on to Morgan Gibbs-White’s pass before crossing for Chris Wood to score. But they did pull level when Milenkovic, having scored his first Premier League goal in last Saturday’s win at United, thudded home a header from Gibbs-White’s cross from the right.
Six minutes later, Elanga completed the comeback when he swept home from close range after another flowing move.
Tyrone Mings’s second league start of the season was put on ice when, taken ill in the warmup, he had to be replaced by Pau Torres. But while Villa’s defensive shape remained unchanged, the fluidity of their midfield forced Forest into some unorthodox diligence when out of possession.
With John McGinn tucking in from his position narrow on the left, Ola Aina, Forest’s right-back, followed him inside, obliging the recalled central midfielder Nicolás Domínguez to fill the space outside where Lucas Digne can be so productive.
Durán, starting again in the Premier League with Ollie Watkins not fully fit, had one speculative volley fly over but, in a deadlocked first half, Forest gradually began to make some headway. With their best start in three decades behind them and a place in the top four potentially ahead, Forest were not lacking in confidence. Their gameplan to block Villa out seemed to be working. At the other end, Wood headed Neco Williams’ centre back across the face of goal, but Diego Carlos cleared before Domínguez could hope to capitalise.
Elliot Anderson slalomed his way through the inside-left channel only for his shot to deflect behind off Boubacar Kamara. Running over to the other side to take the corner, Anderson’s delivery was headed just wide of the far post by Murillo.
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Villa, legs tested but morale boosted by the midweek win over RB Leipzig that puts them close to automatically qualifying for the last 16 of the Champions League, came back into the contest. Another referee than Sam Barrott might have given them a penalty when Anderson kept pulling Morgan Rogers’ shirt as the pair ran into the area. Ezri Konsa was unlucky to head McGinn’s free-kick just wide of the far post.
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Some tetchy exchanges between the two coaching teams reflected the tension early in the second half either side of two remarkable contributions from Durán. First, the Colombian completely missed his volley when McGinn’s corner found him clear at the back post. But then he immediately responded by spinning around and dispatching an overhead kick on to the roof of the net.
His goal was preceded by one of the most remarkable saves you will see this season. After Gibbs-White flicked on Anderson’s corner, Domínguez stooped low to head goalwards from about four yards. The ball appeared to go below and beyond Emiliano Martínez but, somehow, he stretched backwards to tap the ball down on to the line. Carlos then hacked the rebound clear.
The significance of the save was underlined within minutes. Villa played a superb possession game along the edge of Forest’s box, from right to left, from Rogers into Durán, on to McGinn, out to Digne and back inside to McGinn, whose clipped cross was expertly headed in by Durán, for his third goal in a week.
