Forest Strike First Blood In Europa League Semi

Chris Wood’s second-half penalty gave Nottingham Forest a slender advantage in their Europa League semi-final first leg against Aston Villa.

The visitors had the better of the opening half-hour, but their chances were limited to efforts from range from Youri Tielemans and Morgan Rogers, both comfortably saved by Stefan Ortega in the Forest goal.

But it was the hosts who had the first half’s best opening, as Emiliano Martinez remarkably kept out Igor Jesus’ effort from Morgan Gibbs-White’s cutback.

Ollie Watkins should have put Villa ahead early in the second half but prodded his effort straight at Ortega and was made to rue his mistake 15 minutes later.

Lucas Digne was penalised via VAR for a somewhat bizarre handball when the ball looked like harmlessly sailing out of play. Chris Wood took advantage and rifled the ball home from 12 yards to give Forest a precious lead heading into the second leg at Villa Park next Thursday.

The hot topic post-match was Unai Emery’s impassioned press conference in which he bemoaned VAR, after the officiating team failed to give a red card to Forest’s Elliot Anderson, following a high tackle that caught the ankle of striker Watkins.

The first-leg result means Forest are now as short as 8/13 to reach the Europa League Final, with next week’s hosts priced up at around the 5/4 mark.

In the other semi-final, Mario Dorgeles hit an injury-time winner to hand Braga a 2-1 win over German side Freiburg in Portugal. Winners of the two ties will meet at the Besiktas Stadium in Istanbul on Wednesday 20 May.

And the bookies favour the English sides in the betting to win the tournament, with PricedUp offering 9/2 for both Braga and Freiburg to lift the trophy, while Villa and Forest are 6/4 and 7/4 respectively.