Aston Villa boss Unai Emery was left disappointed with his side’s performance in the latter stages of our 2-1 defeat to Nottingham Forest.
Villa took the lead through Jhon Duran just after the hour mark, just minutes after Emiliano Martinez had produced a stunning save to keep it goalless.
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However, our defence has been our Achilles heel for much of this campaign already, and it proved to be too tough a task to keep the hosts out for the entire game, as we capitulated in the final 10 minutes and conceded twice to surrender our lead and return home empty-handed.
For all the positives of the opening 80 minutes as we look to be returning to our previous levels and taking important steps forward in getting back a sense of control, structure and playing the Emery way, all that good work on Saturday evening was undone with a woeful end to the encounter.
That was the analysis offered by Emery for the most part too, and although the Villa boss remains balanced in his assessments and discussions of his side, he seemingly dropped a big hint at the end of his comments below that he is already fully aware of where we still need to improve.
Whether that’s a tactical or personnel issue, remains to be seen.
“We played in the gameplan and did fantastic in the first 70 minutes and scored one goal,” he said in his post-match interview, as per BBC Sport. “We were trying to stop them in the high press but they are not pushing up and we are more or less doing this in the beginning. When we scored they pushed more and made changes. We tried to be consistent and then we did not do that in the last 20 minutes and we conceded the goals – one offside – but if we do that we won’t be in the top eight.
“We are in the process of building the team and we are trying to be competitive and consistent. Today was a key moment because we are going to fight with them for the opportunity to be in the top eight. Today they got advantage and it is our challenge.
“We played 90 minutes more or less as we planned. In the first 70 minutes, we were controlling and kept the ball possession. Nottingham Forest are very aggressive in attack. We lost the control completely in the final 20 minutes because they started pushing more and made some changes.
“We had to be consistent with the ball. We had to keep the possession and should have tried to attack and score the second goal.
“But of course it is a process. We are in a process. We will analyse the first 70 minutes and also the last 20 minutes and where we have improve the team is very clear to me.”
It doesn’t get any easier for Villa to end the year as we face Manchester City, Newcastle Utd and Brighton between now and December 30, and so if we don’t find solutions to tighten up our defence and start to keep clean sheets consistently, we’ll likely encounter more troubles in the coming weeks.
This is a bitterly disappointing blow given the position we were in going into the final 15 minutes, and we can’t afford to throw away points in such a competitive league.
It’s important the positives from this performance aren’t disregarded or forgotten as we put ourselves in a strong position to come away with a win, but if lessons aren’t learned and warnings not heeded, we’ll continue to suffer more disappointment and frustration as we simply can’t keep conceding and showing a soft foundation in this team.
