Chris Wood penalty gives Forest narrow first-leg lead over Villa | OneFootball

Chris Wood's second-half penalty gave Nottingham Forest a first-leg advantage against Aston Villa in the all-Premier League Europa League semi-final.

It had been decades since the last European semi-final at the City Ground and this one took a while to get going but soon opened up.

The first notable incident of the game came with just over a half hour gone when Elliot Anderson will have felt he was lucky to stay on the pitch. The England midfielder's tackle on international teammate Ollie Watkins wasn't a pretty one and caught the striker on the ankle. 

VAR had a look at it but didn't decide to elevate it – a lucky escape for Anderson who would on another day likely have seen red.

Just a few minutes after that Forest almost scored if it hadn't been for some outstanding goalkeeping. Igor Jesus shot from just a few yards out that Emiliano Martínez did well to get a hand to which stopped it from immediately crossing the line, which it would have done had the Argentinian not quickly swung his other arm over to avert a certain goal.

In the second half it was Stefan Ortega caught into action after Morgan Rogers put in a ball that Watkins latched on to but went straight at the goalkeeper.

While VAR had not intervened in the first half it did in the second to award a penalty to the home team.

It came from what looked like an innocuous bit of play with Morgan Gibbs-White crossing to the far post where Omari Hutchinson was lurking. The ball seemed to be going out of play until Hutchinson did well to wrap his foot around it to keep it in play where it hit the outstretched arm of Lucas Digne.

Initially, the decision was goalkick. However, once it was decided that the ball had not gone out of play then the referee was summoned to the monitor and a penalty was awarded.

Martínez is a solid penalty stopper but there was nothing any goalkeeper could have done to stop Chris Wood's effort which was fired with power into the top corner.

Villa had much of the ball after that but never looked like they wanted to commit too many players forward with another 90 minutes at least to play at Villa Park in the second leg. Forest's lead is narrow but fans in the City Ground enjoyed that.