Phew! Aston Villa made that harder than they actually should have done, but three points are three points.
The first-half blitz, which also saw Douglas Luiz net a brace, was just too hand-to-handle for Nottingham Forest and a key reason why them pulling two goals back didn’t affect Unai Emery’s side.
Yes, it’s not helpful that a clean sheet wasn’t secured, but the big players stepped up once again, including Douglas Luiz.
When the 25-year-old took to Instagram to express his delight at winning the game, the Aston Villa star was lauded in the comments section by a number of players, including Real Madrid’s Vinicius Jr, Manchester City’s Jack Grealish and his club teammates.
Vinicius Jr simply wrote, ‘bravo’, whilst Jack Grealish sent a top emoji, Morgan Rogers, who came off the bench for his home debut against Forest, wrote ‘the best’ and Youri Tielemans told him ‘well done bro’.
Those two goals from Aston Villa’s £15 million signing also meant that he has now scored nine Premier League goals this term, including supplying four assists.
That is some return from the midfielder and it’s further proof that he is one of the best midfielders in the Premier League right now.
Douglas Luiz is a bargain transfer
That unknown figure who signed for Villa under Dean Smith back in 2019 has proven to be a bargain buy and proof that you don’t need to splash the cash crazy way.
There is a reason why Luiz was, not just the Supporters’ Player of the Season for the 2022/23 campaign, but also the Players’ Player of the Season.
Even heading towards the crunch moments of the current campaign, he is certainly on that list to win the awards again because he has been outstanding.
The club crave Champions League football and it would be incredible if it could be achieved on top of winning the Europa Conference League.
There is still a long way to go, but the signs are positive so far, it’s just a case of winning the games we need to, continuing next week against Luton Town, and then we should be just fine.
