Unai Emery says Nottingham Forest will battle Aston Villa for a place in the Premier League’s top eight after defeat at the City Stadium.
Forest came from behind to defeat Valar 2-1 at home on Saturday night.
The first half was really boring, but The game came alive in the 60th minute When Villa goalkeeper Emiliano Martinez made one of the greatest saves in Premier League history.
It was the shot in the arm the game desperately needed and three minutes later Jhon Duran’s superb header put the visitors 1-0 ahead, his sixth Premier League goal of the season.
Nuno Espirito Santo made some changes and the introduction of Anthony Elanga saved the day, setting up Chris Wood five minutes after coming on despite being slightly offside.
Forest equalized in the 87th minute when Martinez failed to stop Nikola Milenkovic’s header from close range and Elanga converted three minutes into stoppage time through Elliott’s Anderson’s assist tied the score. Entering fourth placethree points better than Saturday’s opponent.
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After the crushing defeat, Aston Villa boss Unai Emery said his players “performed brilliantly” throughout the 70 minutes and that defeat to their European qualifier opponents gave Forest an “advantage” going forward.
“We followed the game plan and had a great first 70 minutes and scored a goal,” he said.
“We tried to stop them with high pressure but they didn’t push up, which we more or less did at the start.
“When we score, they work harder and make changes.
“We tried to be consistent but we didn’t do that in the last 20 minutes and conceded a goal – an offside – but if we had done that we wouldn’t have been in the top eight.
“We’re building the team and we’re trying to be competitive and consistent. Today is a critical moment because we’re going to be fighting them for a chance to be in the top eight. They got the advantage today and that’s our challenge.”
Meanwhile, Matty Cash said after the loss to his former club: “We’re really disappointed. We always knew it was a tough place to be.
“We did well in the first 60 minutes but maybe we lost a little control in the last 30 minutes. We were really disappointed in the end.
“It was so hard. You have to come to a place like this and stay strong and try to get three points. We didn’t do enough, but we pick ourselves up and go next week.
“Everyone is important. We have a great team relationship here, we have a great coach and a great squad. Our challenge is to finish as high as possible. We will go out again and look forward to bouncing back ”
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