Aston Villa 4 Nottingham Forest 2

  Superb performances from Douglas Luiz, Leon Bailey, Ollie Watkins and John McGinn gave Villa victory that was made even sweeter as Man United lost ground on Villa. Luiz was on a mission, Bailey couldn't be stopped, Watkins was always finding the right position and McGinn was all over the pitch fighting for possession. 

Villa found the back of the net after just 4 minutes when Bailey's trickery left the Forest defence wheeling and Watkins peeled off the final defender to shoot home in front of the Holte End to give Villa an early lead. From this point on Forest looked in disarray. The second goal came after 29 minutes and again came from an attack down Forest's left-hand side. Cash this time went through the defence before finding Ramsey who then set up Douglas Luiz for his second. Villa weren't done though and 2 soon became 3 when yet another attack down that side saw McGinn cross the ball for Luiz to head home his second and give Villa a three goal cushion before 40 minutes were up. At this point it looked like Villa would have 5 or 6 but, this is Villa, so we don't like to do things easily. 

One problem with Villa this season is that the defending of set pieces is never great, especially it seems when Martinez has had nothing to do for most of the game, so Forest got one back in stoppage time when Niakhate scored from a corner to make it 3-1 at halftime.

The second half was always going to be jittery when Pau Torres, who as always had been exemplary in defence had to be replaced by Callum Chambers, who funnily enough looked like a player who had been transfer listed and not played for 5 months when he came on. Villa's high line works perfectly with a well drilled defence, but it took Lenglet a while to get used to it and Chambers hasn't had the chance. Neither of them are probably the best to do it effectively, and this was definitely the case when Morgan Gibbs-White pulled a second goal back early in the second-half. Chambers grew into the game but for the first 15 minutes was like Bambi on ice. 

The introduction of a more defensively minded Digne for Moreno helped Villa out too, but waht really helped was Watkins turning provider to set up Bailey for a fourth to put the game behind Forest's reach. It was a good and convincing win, but definitely could have been smoother.













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