Aston Villa vs Nottingham Forest Prediction ...0

We look ahead to Saturday’s Premier League game at Villa Park with our Aston Villa vs Nottingham Forest prediction and preview. Will Nuno Espírito Santo’s side continue their charge towards the Champions League?

Aston Villa vs Nottingham Forest Stats: The Key Insights

The race for Europe is heating up, and Aston Villa host Nottingham Forest, with both teams coming off the back of impressive midweek wins.

Forest overcame Manchester United 1-0 on Tuesday thanks to a stunning solo goal from former Red Devil Anthony Elanga, who covered most of the length of the City Ground pitch before slotting home.

Villa, meanwhile, hit their stride against Brighton, proving clinical on the counter-attack as their quality told at the top end of the pitch. January arrivals Marcus Rashford, Marco Asensio and Donyell Malen got on the scoresheet in a 3-0 victory at the Amex Stadium.

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That victory saw Villa move up to seventh, and they are well in the hunt for Champions League qualification. Forest, meanwhile, are third, and the Opta supercomputer gives them a 51.3% chance of staying there.

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Both of these teams have also reached the FA Cup semi-finals, which will take place later this month at Wembley, so this match could even end up being a dress rehearsal for a showdown in the final.

Victory for either team would represent a huge boost to their respective European qualification hopes, though Villa do have an even bigger clash on the horizon – they face Paris Saint-Germain in the first leg of their Champions League quarter-final next week, so Unai Emery has plenty to ponder as he looks to balance domestic and continental ambitions.

He has a front line that is bang in form, though, and plenty of top-tier options to choose from.

Rashford is a player rejuvenated, and he followed up his double in the FA Cup against Preston North End with his maiden Premier League goal for Villa when he finished well from Morgan Rogers’ ball to make it 1-0 at Brighton.

The England international has a terrific record against Forest, having been involved in seven goals in seven appearances against them in all competitions, all while playing for Manchester United (three goals, four assists), and he will be confident of keeping up that form.

Rashford has already contributed to seven goals in all competitions for Villa. Since 2 February, when he joined the club, only four Premier League players have contributed to more across all competitions than the United loanee.

Among them is Asensio, who has often been Rashford’s partner in crime up top. The forward – who will go up against his parent club in the Champions League next week – has already plundered eight goals for Villa in all competitions.

Across Villa’s last three home games, they have scored seven goals. Six of them have been scored by Asensio, with the former Real Madrid star netting doubles against Chelsea, Cardiff City and Club Brugge.

Villa have had 225 shots in 15 Premier League matches at Villa Park this season, an average of 15.0 per game, their highest average in the competition since 2003-04 (15.5). Striker Ollie Watkins is averaging 4.1 shots per 90 minutes, the most by a Villa player with 500+ minutes played at home in the top flight since Juan Pablo Angel in 2003-04 (4.5).

But, Villa’s free-flowing attack will come up against one of the Premier League’s best-performing defences.

Forest have kept a joint-high 13 clean sheets, level with Liverpool, while only Arsenal (25), Liverpool (27) and Crystal Palace (34) have conceded fewer goals than Nuno Espírito Santo’s team in the top flight this term (35).

Their 36.16 expected goals against (xGA) from 416 shots shows Forest limit their opponents to opportunities worth just 0.08 xG on average.

Not that Forest are all about defending. In Chris Wood, they have one of this season’s stars.

The Kiwi has scored three goals in six Premier League starts against Villa, all of which came while playing for Burnley between 2019 and 2021. Away from home, he has had a hand in 10 goals this season for Forest (eight goals, two assists) with only Bryan Roy (six goals, five assists in 1994-95) and Stan Collymore (nine goals, four assists in 1994-95) scoring and assisting more in a season.

Wood missed the United game due to injury, so it may be touch-and-go if he is fit to feature on Saturday.

But Forest are facing a formidable team when it comes to playing on their own turf. Since losing 2-0 to Arsenal in August, Villa have avoided defeat in all seven home Premier League games when they have conceded first (W3 D4).

It is their most wins at Villa Park when conceding first in a single top-flight campaign since 2013-14 (three), and they have never done so four times in one Premier League season.

In fact, Villa are unbeaten in their last 14 home Premier League matches (W7 D7). Emery has already had a 17-game unbeaten run at Villa Park between March and December 2023 and could be the first Villa manager since Ron Saunders in 1976-77 (18) and 1980-81 (15) to have two separate runs of 15 unbeaten top-flight home games.

Forest, though, have won 10 of their 17 away Premier League matches (D2 L5) – that is as many as they won in 74 away games in the competition between August 1996 and April 2024 combined (W10 D18 L46).

We should be in for a cracker.

Aston Villa vs Nottingham Forest Head-to-Head

Villa are unbeaten in their last eight home league games against Forest (W5 D3) since a 2-0 loss in October 1994.

They have scored at least twice in each of the last seven at Villa Park.

Following their 2-1 win at the City Ground in December, Forest are looking to complete their first league double over Villa since 1984-85.

Aston Villa vs Nottingham Forest Prediction

Forest might be flying high in third place, but it is Villa who are made the favourites by the Opta supercomputer, which ran 10,000 data-led simulations.

Villa won 46.1% of those sims, while Forest triumphed in 29.1%. The chance of a draw is 24.8%.

Aston Villa vs Nottingham Forest Predicted Lineups

Opta Power Rankings

The Opta Power Rankings are a global team ranking system. They assign an ability score to over 13,000 domestic football teams. This score is on a scale between zero and 100, where zero is the worst-ranked team in the world and 100 is the best team in the world.

Ahead of kick-off this weekend, here is the Opta Power Ranking for both sides.

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Aston Villa vs Nottingham Forest Prediction Opta Analyst.

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