Aston Villa's Struggles Continue After Nottingham Forest Defeat
Nobody said this season would glide by on last May’s memories.
Tyrone Mings didn’t need words anyway. At full-time he just dropped to the turf, the image of a club jolted back to reality after a 2-1 home defeat to Nottingham Forest that leaves Aston Villa staring down the table and searching for answers.
Three losses from four league games. A summer rebuild already under scrutiny. A manager who only a few months ago was lifting the Europa League trophy now locked in a scrap to stop the slide. If Coventry beat Brighton on Sunday, Unai Emery’s side will wake up bottom of the Premier League.
For all the talk of progress, the numbers are blunt. This is the fourth time Villa have opened a top-flight campaign without a win in their first four – 1992-93, 1997-98, 2025-26, and now. The pattern mirrors last season’s slow start, but the mood could hardly be more different. That fourth-placed finish and European glory feel distant, almost like someone else’s story.
This time, the warning lights are flashing at Villa Park.
Forest seize their moment
Oliver Glasner knows how to pick Emery’s lock. He arrived with a perfect record against the Spaniard and left with it intact: eight games, no defeats. Thanks to a late Igor Jesus winner, his first victory as Forest boss might be the sweetest of the lot.
Forest earned it.
Liam Delap struck 45 seconds after the restart, racing out of the blocks while Villa were still wiping the half-time talk from their boots. The forward ran Villa’s defence ragged all afternoon, even seeing another effort chalked off. By the end, the visitors had racked up 22 shots and 32 touches in the home box. That’s not smash-and-grab. That’s dominance.
Villa did finally snap a barren run of 372 Premier League minutes without a goal. Brazilian forward Alysson, on as a substitute, glanced in John McGinn’s cross to level against the run of play, his first goal in English football. Normally, that’s the cue for Villa Park to ignite, for Emery’s side to surge and suffocate opponents.
Not this time.
The pressure came from the other end. With two minutes left, Jesus darted in front of Aaron Wan-Bissaka and buried the winner, Forest’s first league victory at Villa Park since 1994. A landmark result, built on Villa’s fragility.
Injuries, red-card fury and a defence creaking
By then, Villa were hanging on with 10 men, and not because of a dismissal.
Full-back Ian Maatsen had already limped off with an ankle injury, Emery having used all his substitutions. The fear is he could be out for a considerable spell, dragging new signing Matteo Ruggeri into the firing line earlier than planned. Pau Torres had departed in the first half as well, leaving a backline that already looked thin now verging on threadbare. Taylor Harwood-Bellis, the £30m summer signing, didn’t even make the squad.
Emery’s anger was clear. He felt Forest attacker James McAtee should have been sent off for the challenge that injured Maatsen, and he did not hide his view of the incident.
“After watching it on TV, I think the VAR should call the referee because it's a clear tackle behind the player and, for me, it should be a red card,” he said. He pointed out that Villa had accepted Joao Gomes’ two yellow cards and dismissal at Brighton, but believed this time the officials got it wrong.
He insisted it was not an excuse for what followed.
“We played so so poor, and this is our work and our responsibility or my responsibility,” he admitted, blunt about a second-half display that unravelled as the minutes ticked away.
The closing stages were chaotic. Forest poured forward, Villa retreated, and the 10 men never looked like wresting control back. Jesus’ late strike simply underlined where the momentum truly lay.
Attack misfires, big names on the fringes
If the defence is patched up, the attack looks disjointed.
There was one farcical goalmouth scramble where Victor Lindelof somehow failed to score after Matz Sels, Murillo and the post combined to keep the ball out. Beyond that, Villa created almost nothing of substance.
Nicolas Jackson, booked early, was hooked at half-time. Emery admitted he feared the Senegal striker might see red. On came Tammy Abraham, a player the club had been prepared to sell in the summer, but he couldn’t shift the rhythm of the game.
Alysson’s equaliser briefly changed the noise, not the pattern. Johan Manzambi and Ibrahim Mbaye, a combined £98m worth of talent, were introduced after the break for their debuts. Neither could tilt the contest back in Villa’s favour.
Alejandro Garnacho watched the whole thing from the bench again. The Chelsea loanee has yet to convince Emery he deserves minutes, and his exile continued on a day when Villa looked short of spark and invention.
Villa Park losing its fear factor
For a year, Villa Park felt like a fortress. Opponents arrived wary, often beaten before kick-off. That aura has cracked.
They went 12 months without a home league defeat before Glasner’s old club Crystal Palace smashed that run with a 3-0 win last August. Since then, the cracks have widened. Palace returned to win 2-1 in the Carabao Cup. Villa lost four of their final 15 home league games last season and needed late goals to scrape a point against Leeds and edge past Brighton and Sunderland. Newcastle came here in the FA Cup and won 3-1, exposing the soft underbelly again.
This season’s home campaign has opened with a 1-0 defeat to champions Arsenal and now this loss to Forest. The stadium, once a snarling, intimidating backdrop, feels different.
There are reasons. A major squad overhaul after key departures always brings turbulence. The North Stand redevelopment has reduced capacity and left one end without fans, dulling the noise and the sense of enclosure that used to suffocate visiting sides.
But the drop-off is now too stark to brush away.
Yes, Villa delivered when it mattered most last season. They destroyed Forest in the Europa League semi-final on this ground, then put four past Liverpool to clinch a Champions League place. Those were ferocious, statement nights. The kind that reshape a club’s image.
Right now, they feel like a high point rather than a new normal.
Emery searching for answers
So often under Emery, an equaliser has been the launchpad for a late onslaught. On Saturday, it was the cue for Villa to lose their shape.
“I don't know why,” he said. “I want to see the match again and to understand why we lost our shape.”
That line will linger. Emery has been the man with solutions since he walked through the door, the coach who turned a drifting side into a Champions League team. Now he is the one asking the questions.
Next up is Coventry away in the Carabao Cup on Wednesday, then a daunting trip to Tottenham. Harwood-Bellis will expect his chance at the CBS Arena. Others will too. Because this is no longer about rotation or resting legs; it’s about jolting a side that has slipped into bad habits.
Forest walked away from Villa Park with history, a first league win here in 30 years, and the sense of a project kicking into gear under Glasner.
Villa walked off with injuries, doubts, and a manager staring hard at the screen, trying to work out how quickly he can turn this around before a slow start becomes something far more serious.
