Aston Villa news from BirminghamLive as Unai Emery reacts to his side’s win over Nottingham Forest

Unai Emery admits Aston Villa’s 4-2 win over Nottingham Forest was “very important” after starting 2024 with three straight defeats in all competitions.

Villa were set to head into the break with a 3-0 lead after Ollie Watkins opened the scoring before and Douglas Luiz bagged a brace, but Moussa Niakhate reduced the away side’s deficit moments before half-time. Morgan Gibbs-White scored a second for Forest right after the restart, but Leon Bailey made sure of the points by restoring Villa’s two-goal lead on the hour mark.

“It was very important,” Emery told the BBC. “We adapted well at Sheffield United and Fulham after defeats at home but we needed confidence here and a reaction. We are feeling vey comfortable and confident at Villa Park.

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“We more or less deserved to win. We played a really fantastic match in the first half and only the first 15 minutes of the second half we had some doubts but we stayed calm and reacted well.

“We knew before the match that they could play despite our domination in the match. They have very good transitions and some pace players and they could surprise us.

“We were very careful about that. We didn’t concede any transitions in the first half and we only conceded one corner, which they scored form. The maturity and personality we showed after their second goal was superb and then we scored and controlled the game.

“We have very different ways to threaten the opponent and different teams demand different things.”