Emery: Villa blew an opportunity to dine with the top dogs.

Emery: Villa blew an opportunity to dine with the top dogs.

Aston Villa 0 Nottingham Forest 2

Unai Emery, manager of Aston Villa, understands his team blew an opportunity to prove they can compete at the top of the Premier League after falling 2-0 to Nottingham Forest.
Forest won courtesy to goals from Ola Aina and Orel Mangala, while Villa were below par for the first time in six outings.

Emery’s team, which has had an outstanding start to the season, had the opportunity to go above Arsenal and into the top four, but they blundered.

“Today was a key moment, if we could really be a contender to be in the top seven teams, and we lost the opportunity,” Emery said in a statement.

“I believe in the players and know they can do it, but we must be very demanding.” We can’t continue to blow opportunities like we did today.

“If we want to be one of the top seven teams, we need to try to cut down on the mistakes we made today.”

“Every match is a key moment in 38 matches.” Today was a crucial occasion for us to close the gap on the other teams and move into the top four, but we blew it. The following match against Fulham next week will be a battle, and it will be another crucial moment.”

Forest seized the lead in the fifth minute when Aina converted from 20 yards out, and they doubled their lead immediately after the half thanks to a rare Emiliano Martinez blunder.

The Argentina World Cup winner earned the Yashin Trophy at the Ballon d’Or last week, but this attempt will not win him any prizes as he could only palm Mangala’s shot into his own net.

Forest won for the first time since September 2 with an outstanding performance in which manager Steve Cooper triumphed in the tactical duel against Emery.

“The players massively followed the game plan,” Cooper remarked. I told them that I was grateful to them for sticking to the plan we devised.

Vlachodimos, Aina (Williams 86), Niakhate, Murillo, Toffolo (Aurier 71), Sangare, Mangala, Dominguez (Yates 87), Gibbs-White, Awoniyi (Danilo 82), and Elanga for Nottm Forest.

Turner, Tavares, Kouyate, Santos, and Boly were not used as substitutes.

Martinez, Cash (Tielemans 59), Konsa, Torres, Digne, McGinn, Kamara (Diego Carlos 78), Douglas Luiz (Dendoncker 86), Zaniolo (Bailey 46), Diaby, Watkins (Aston Villa).

Traore, Alex Moreno, Chambers, Lenglet, and Olsen were not used as substitutes.

Jarred Gillett (Australia) is the official referee.