To Europe! …for one final time, possibly. Who knows when this experience will come around again? Another thirty year wait? Or if we play our cards right, we can still finish 7th in the PL. Steady the buffers, etc.
You know how this plays out by now. The team news drops (whilst I was in the shower, actually, with Sir Colin of West Bridgford on the waterproof bluetooth speaker). Morato. Oh. I have a bad feeling about this. We do love our anti-heroes at Forest.
Villa Park was spectacular ahead of KO, rising to the occasion. I remember the last time I was there for a semi - West Ham in the FA Cup, April 1991. I don’t recall tifos, fireworks and Europa League anthems.
“Who the fucking hell are you?”
…as West Ham ran out.
Forest were under the cosh, right from the start. You don’t say. In my mind, I resolved that we would be 1-0 down heading into the break. My hope was that we could SHIT HOUSE it out, and hang on for extra time and pens.
Our passing game was strangled by Villa in midfield. We missed MGW big time. Gaps appeared all over the midfield. McAtee is a very lightweight figure.
The volume at Villa Park only grew louder with the inevitable goal. I’m not digging out the Forest fans, but I couldn’t hear them throughout the 90 minutes on the telly. The atmosphere was very different to Villa Vs #lolspurs last Sunday.
We did well to hang on to HT with only the one goal against us. Time to regroup, time to urgently find a Plan B. Cometh the hour, cometh, erm, Ryan Yates. It would be quite some story if the Forest Academy player could lead us towards a major European final.
I’ve watched all our Europa League games this season totally stress free. The PL has been intense and horrid; the Europa is a nice jolly of a distraction. This kinda continued as the second, third and then fourth Villa goal went in.
Oh dear. This is not happening, right?
It’s been a messy, joyous and utterly BONKERS season for Forest. And there’s possibly still more to come. Farewell Europe - for now. We still need to put in a performance against Newcastle on Sunday to guarantee PL survival.
No one wants to be leading the charge of: To D***y! …next season.