Nottingham Forest v Aston Villa: Prediction, team news, line-ups and odds | OneFootball

Nottingham Forest v Aston Villa isn’t just a Europa League semi-final between a pair of Premier League rivals. It pits two sides who have both won European club football’s ultimate prize.

Brian Clough’s Forest won the European Cup in both 1979 and 1980 while Villa defeated Bayern Munich in the 1982 final to lift the famous trophy. Now one of them will get the chance to be crowned Europa League winners when the final takes place in Istanbul next month.

Villa boss Unai Emery is the king of the Europa League having won the trophy four times but Forest go into the match on the back of a stunning 5-0 win at Sunderland to suggest they’re running into their best form of the season at the perfect time.

Nottingham Forest v Aston Villa kick-off time

Nottingham Forest v Aston Villa kicks off at 8pm BST on Thursday, April 30 at the City Ground.

Nottingham Forest v Aston Villa how to watch

The game will be shown live in the UK on TNT Sports 1 and HBO Max. Coverage begins at 7pm.

BBC Radio 5 Live and TalkSPORT will both provide full match commentary.

Nottingham Forest team news

The only downside of Forest’s 5-0 win at Sunderland was Jair Cunha being taken off early in the second half with an arm injury.

They are definitely missing Callum Hudson-Odoi, Murillo, John Victor, Nicolo Savona and Willy Boly.

Aston Villa team news

Amadou Onana missed the 1-0 defeat at Fulham at the weekend and faces a race against time to be fit.

Boubacar Kamara and Alysson remain on the injured list but, Apart from that, Emery said on Monday that the only other player definitely unavailable is Ross Barkley who isn’t registered in the Villa squad for the Europa League.

Nottingham Forest v Aston Villa odds

Forest are narrow 6/4 favourites to win the match and secure a crucial first-leg lead. Aston Villa are 9/5 to win while a draw on the night is 11/5.

Villa are clear 4/7 favourites to make the final while Forest trade at 11/8 in the ‘To Qualify’ market.

In the outright tournament betting, Aston Villa are 11/10 favourites, with Forest 7/2. They’re both shorter than the two sides in the other semi, with Freiburg 9/2 and Braga 7/1.

Nottingham Forest v Aston Villa prediction

These two met earlier this month and we landed a 6/1 winner by correctly predicting the 1-1 scoreline.

Murillo’s own goal gave Villa the lead before Neco Williams equalised seven minutes before the break.

Since then, Forest have won three on the spin and racked up 10 goals in the process after victories over Porto (1-0), Burnley (4-1) and Sunderland (5-0).

And given that Villa are still struggling on the road, let’s back the vibrant hosts to edge this and take a lead to Villa Park.

Head to the Winning Margin market and back Forest to win by 1 goal at 10/3.

Igor Jesus now has 15 goals for the hosts this season and seven of those have come in Europe.

That makes him the joint-leading scorer in this year’s Europa League so back the Brazilian to score anytime at 12/5.