Nottingham Forest vs Aston Villa LIVE: Team news and updates as English clubs clash in Europa League semi-final | OneFootball

Unai Emery: 'I want to write a new chapter'

Four-time Europa League winner Unai Emery says: “I have my own experiences before in this competition and different momentum as well.

“But it is completely different. In football, everything you have done before, though it may be fantastic, it's done.

“Now it is a new chapter and I want to write a new chapter here. The most important experiences are the ones we have here together.

“Our experiences are a semi-final in the Conference League, quarter-final in the Champions League.

“We must try to learn with our experiences, to respond better than we did.”

Unai Emery has won four Europa League titles, including three in a row with Sevilla (Getty)

Aston Villa line-up

Aston Villa XI: Martinez, Cash, Konas, Pau Torres, Digne, Tielemans, Onana, McGinn, Buendia, Rogers, Watkins

Substitutes: Bizot, Wright, Bogarde, Maatsen, Lindelof, Mings, Garcia, Luiz, Bailey, Elliott, Sancho, Abraham

Flo Clifford30 April 2026 18:47

Brilliant Aston Villa run rampant against Bologna to secure Europa League semi-final spot

And their opponents...

Aston Villa blew Bologna away with a trio of first-half goals as they roared into the semi-finals of the Europa League with a 4-0 victory, winning 7-1 on aggregate.

Unai Emery’s side cruised into a second European semi-final in three years to set up an all-Premier League clash with Nottingham Forest for a place in the final in Istanbul.

The Villa boss is an expert in this competition with four titles to his name and few would bet against him adding a fifth.

Aston Villa run rampant against Bologna to secure Europa League semi-final spot

Aston Villa 4-0 Bologna: Goals from Ollie Watkins, Emi Buendia, Morgan Rogers and Ezri Konsa earned the hosts a 7-1 aggregate win in the quarter-final

Flo Clifford30 April 2026 18:25

Nottingham Forest set up Europa League clash with Aston Villa after narrow quarter-final win

Here’s how both sides got here...

Nottingham Forest reached their first European semi-final since 1984 as they set up an all-English Europa League last-four meeting with Aston Villa.

Not since the glory days of Brian Clough have Forest performed as well on the continent, where they won back-to-back European Cups and got to the last four of the Uefa Cup in a five-year period.

Flo Clifford30 April 2026 18:15

Why romance of Aston Villa and Nottingham Forest’s European tie is an antidote to modern football

On consecutive Thursdays, as East Midlands meets West, their past will be all around them. Nottingham Forest’s City Ground is a monument to the architects of arguably the greatest story of them all in European football.

There is the Brian Clough Stand and the Peter Taylor Stand, celebrating the double act who won two European Cups with a provincial club they inherited in the lower half of the second division.

Villa Park, meanwhile, is adorned with Brian Moore’s commentary of Peter Withe’s winner in the 1982 European Cup final.

Flo Clifford30 April 2026 18:05