Credit: Tung Manh Phan

James Barker

Mon 27 April 2026 17:10, UK

Aston Villa are behind Nottingham Forest in a number of key attacking metrics in the Europa League ahead of their semi-final first leg clash.

Unai Emery‘s side resume their mission of winning the Europa League on Thursday night, as they travel to the City Ground.

A 1-0 defeat to Fulham on Saturday isn’t the ideal preparation the Villans would’ve been hoping for either, but they must not let that poor result and performance carry over.

Standing in their way of a date with destiny in Istanbul are Nottingham Forest, who currently sit 16th in the Premier League table, and are on the verge of securing their place in the top flight for next season.

Villa will be the favourites to beat Forest over the two legs, but whilst they have had a testing Premier League campaign, Vitor Pereira’s side have been excellent on the continent.

Nottingham Forest & Aston Villa’s Europa League stats compared

These two sides met only a matter of weeks ago in the top flight, with Aston Villa and Nottingham Forest drawing 1-1 at the City Ground on 12 April.

Indeed, these two semi-final games will mean the two will have already contested four games in the calendar year of 2026, having also met in the Premier League on 3 January, with Villa winning 3-1 that day.

As such, the Premier League pair are very familiar with one another, and so we can perhaps expect a close affair over the two legs, as both coaching teams will be confident they know how to stop one another.

However, with a place in a major European final up for grabs, this is going to have a very different feel about it than their recent meetings, and Forest have proven themselves to be a different animal entirely in Europe this term.

The Garibaldis have beaten the likes of Porto and Fenerbahce, and when it comes to the underlying numbers, they are among the best in numerous categories across this season’s competition.

As per Sofascore, Forest have created the most big chances of any side in the Europa League this season with 44, Villa, meanwhile, are fourth on 36.

No team has hit the woodwork more than the eight times Forest have either, with Villa doing so on six occasions.

They’re also second behind Villa (24) for goals scored with 23, have played more accurate passes per game than the Villans (419.3 to 408.0) and have considerably more accurate crosses per game of 4.7 to Villa’s 3.1 respectively.

Forest are third in the competition for shots per game (16.6) and shots on target per game (6.3), whilst they’ve also won the fourth-most corners per game at 5.9.

Meanwhile, the Tricky Trees have scored the most penalties of any side in the competition with four, and are second behind Aston Villa and Sporting Braga (seven each) with six clean sheets, showing they’ve been strong at the back too.

How good have Forest been at home recently?

With the first leg tie being at the City Ground, Aston Villa must come away from that game in a prime position to take full advantage of the second leg being at Villa Park.

In order to do that, they will have to be defensively on their game to deal with Forest’s dangerous attacking threats.

But, how good have they been on home soil in recent weeks, and what will that tell Villa about the size of the test there on Thursday night?

Well, they’re unbeaten in their last four at home in all competitions, with wins over Burnley and Porto as well as draws with Villa and Fulham respectively.

In that time, they’ve scored six and conceded two, and so fresh off the back of a 5-0 away win at Sunderland, Forest’s confidence is going to be through the roof, so this is going to be a big test for Emery’s side.