Nottingham Forest vs Aston Villa Predictions

• Aston Villa have won their last three games in all competitions, including a 3-2 win at RB Leipzig on Tuesday
• At least three goals have been scored in six of Forest’s last seven Premier League games.
• Villa lost four home games 3-2 last season

Forest will find it tougher against revitalised Villa

Nottingham Forest will find it tough to follow up their win at Old Trafford with another at home to a resurgent Aston Villa side on a three-game winning run.

Nuno Espirito Santo’s side deserved their historic 3-2 win over Manchester United last Saturday — their first at the Theatre of Dreams in over 30 years. But beating Manchester United in their current state and a Villa side beginning to hit form again under Unai Emery are two different propositions at the moment.

Forest exploited Manchester United’s weakness in the air on two occasions while a goalkeeping blunder handed them their other goal. They were the grateful recipients of a rare one from Villa’s Emi Martinez in this fixture last season, which they won 2-0.

Duran can land another knockout punch

Martinez and the Villa defence have been a bit wobbly in recent weeks, but the Lions’ attack has started to heat up again with three goals against Brentford and another triple in Leipzig on Tuesday.

Villa have enough quality to hurt Forest in this fixture with Jhon Duran and John McGinn both in good form at the moment. Duran, who is scoring at a rate of a goal every 79 minutes for Villa this season, is currently a better option for Emery than Ollie Watkins and may get his second Premier League start here.

It certainly would be harsh to drop the Colombian after he scored the winner against Southampton last weekend and popped up with a world-class effort six minutes after coming on against RB Leipzig.

City Ground could witness a classic

The City Ground has witnessed the fewest goals of all the stadia in the Premier League this season with only 14 scored in Forest’s seven home games, but this clash could have the makings of a classic.

At least three goals have been scored in six of Forest’s last seven Premier League games while six of Villa’s seven away league fixtures have also gone over 2.5 goals. Only five top-flight clubs have currently kept fewer clean sheets than Villa so, unless that changes, they will need to score multiple goals to win this one.

There is no doubt that they can do it in their current form and a 3-2 correct score play could be worthwhile in this spot because they are coming off a similar result in Germany while four of Forest’s nine home losses last season were by that exact score.