Aston Villa vs Nottingham Forest LIVE: Europa League semi-final score, commentary & updates

Aston Vila are unbeaten in each of their last 10 meetings with Nottingham Forest at Villa Park across all competitions (W7 D3), since a 2-0 loss in the Premier League in October 1994 under Ron Atkinson.

Nottingham Forest are unbeaten in each of their three European games against fellow English opposition, keeping a clean sheet each time (W2 D1) – their only previous away match was at Anfield versus Liverpool in the 1978-79 European Cup first round, drawing 0-0.

Aston Villa have won each of their last nine home games in major European competition, since a 0-0 draw with Juventus in last season’s UEFA Champions League; the Villans have also scored in 31 of their last 32 matches at Villa Park in such competitions, with that goalless draw the sole exception.

Nottingham Forest are looking to reach a third major European final after, the 1978-79 and 1979-80 European Cups – the Tricky Trees have only been eliminated from one of their last 13 knockout stage ties when winning the first leg, with that the 1983-84 UEFA Cup semi-final against Anderlecht.

Aston Villa are aiming to reach a second major European final, after the 1981-82 European Cup; the last team to overturn a first leg deficit in a major European tie against an opponent from the same nation as them were Atlético de Madrid vs Barcelona in the 2015-16 UEFA Champions League quarter-finals (1-2 away 1st leg, 2-0 home 2nd leg).

No team have recorded more clean sheets in the 2025-26 UEFA Europa League than both Aston Villa and Nottingham Forest (7), both keeping a joint-high three in the knockout stages; the Tricky Trees restricted the Villans to an xG of 0.8 in the first leg, their second lowest tally in a knockout stage game this term (0.5 away to Lille).  

Aston Villa manager Unai Emery has only once before lost both legs of a knockout stage tie in the UEFA Cup/Europa League, with Valencia against Atlético de Madrid in the 2011-12 semi-finals. In fact, that was the last two-legged tie the Spaniard was eliminated from in this competition, progressing from 22 in a row since.

In the first leg of this tie, Nottingham Forest’s Omari Hutchinson recorded the most dribbles (10), created the most chances (4) and had the joint-second most shots (3) – he was the first player to post each of those figures in a UEFA Europa League game since Athletic Club’s Nico Williams vs Roma in last season’s round of 16.   

Aston Villa’s Morgan Rogers has been directly involved in five goals in six home appearances in this season’s UEFA Europa League (2 goals, 3 assists), while he has also scored (1) or assisted (1) in his last two outings at Villa Park against Nottingham Forest in all competitions.

Nottingham Forest’s Igor Jesus has been directly involved in the most away goals in this season’s UEFA Europa League (5 – 4 goals, 1 assist) – he has also had the most shots (34), shots on target (16) and posted the highest xG figure (6.7) in the competition overall this term.