Unai Emery has taken Aston Villa to the Europa League final for the sixth time, and the manager is now one match away from claiming the competition for a fifth time, the report says. Villa reached the decider after a 4-0 victory in the second leg at Villa Park that overturned a 1-0 first-leg deficit at Nottingham Forest.
The match was settled by an early Ollie Watkins goal — the striker played on with a bloodied bandage — followed by an Emiliano Buendia penalty and two late strikes from John McGinn, per the report. Villa supporters celebrated in the stands while stadium announcements warned that entering the pitch would lead to a ban and could be a criminal offence, the report adds.
The report describes Emery as a coach uniquely successful in this competition, noting his previous triumphs with Sevilla and Villarreal and saying this is his sixth Europa League final. At Villa Park, fans sang about travelling to Istanbul while Emery watched from the touchline, focused and later offering a few fist pumps before leaving the area, the report says.
Forest arrived in good recent form and had given Villa a tough match in the first leg, the report notes. They had also made eight changes to the side that then beat Chelsea on Monday to all but secure Premier League status, and their supporters briefly allowed themselves to dream of the Brian Clough era when Forest won the European Cup in 1979 and 1980. Missing players, including Morgan Gibbs-White, Ibrahim Sangaré, Ola Aina and Murillo, hurt Forest; the report says cameras showed Gibbs-White with his head in his hands and a cut to his forehead from an injury sustained on Monday that prevented him from playing.
The report recalls a 30-year wait for a major trophy at Villa since the 1996 League Cup success and warns of past near-misses, such as a Conference League semi defeat to Olympiacos and an FA Cup semi loss to Crystal Palace. McGinn has said the team does not want to be seen as a maybe side, and Emery’s matchday programme message — a 58-word note urging players to deliver something future generations will remember — underlined the task ahead as Villa prepare to meet Freiburg in Istanbul in two weeks, per the report.
