Forest held as Young rocket earns draw for Villa
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NOTTINGHAM: Ashley Young’s superb strike earned Aston Villa a 1-1 draw on Monday at relegation rivals Nottingham Forest who halted a run of five consecutive defeats to climb off the bottom of the Premier League table.
Forest went ahead in the 15th minute when striker Emmanuel Dennis took advantage of slack marking from the Villa defence to head in a free kick from Morgan Gibbs-White.
Villa responded in the 22nd with a superb Young strike from outside the area and thought they had taken the lead later in the first half when Ollie Watkins put the ball in the net only to be flagged offside.
The draw took Forest into 19th place on five points from nine games, climbing above East Midlands neighbours Leicester City. Villa stayed 16th but moved to nine points.
Forest manager Steve Cooper, who last season led the club to promotion back to the top flight for the first time in 23 years, was handed a new three-year contract on Friday despite the team’s dismal run of form.
“It’s a step in the right direction. It’s not the ambition to be drawing at home and not having much of the ball but in the circumstances we have to accept tonight was a forward step,” Cooper, who is still struggling to settle on a starting lineup after Forest made 22 signings in the close season, said.
“You lose five games on the bounce and that is when you might see people hiding but I am seeing the opposite of that. What happened last season was unbelievable but we’re in this league and it is a different sport to the Championship. If we don’t change a little bit it would be naive.”
Villa are unbeaten in their last four games, but Steven Gerrard’s team are also in relegation danger.
Villa have won only once in their last seven league matches and sit just three points above the bottom three.
“It was a fantastic strike and it was one of a few moments of quality in the final third. Ashley Young is leading by example for us at the moment and we are really pleased with him,” Gerrard said.
“I don’t think we created enough to say we deserved to win. We are close to turning draws into wins but to do that we need big players to step forward for us.”
Published in Dawn, October 12th, 2022
