Four days after shaking off their early-season nerves with a sharp Champions League win over Club Brugge, Aston Villa step back into Premier League duty with something they have not enjoyed much of lately: momentum.
Not that the table shows it yet.
Villa’s league campaign has opened with a stutter, inviting uncomfortable echoes of last season, when they failed to score in their first four top-flight games before grinding out a scruffy but vital European win. That night lit the fuse. Seventeen wins in 19 matches followed, and Emery’s side turned from bystanders into one of the continent’s form teams.
This time, the script feels slightly different.
Aside from that wretched opening defeat to Brighton, Villa already look more coherent than they did in the fog of last year’s malaise. Emery has tightened the defensive structure with trademark precision, restoring the compact lines and aggressive pressing that briefly deserted them. The attack, slow to ignite, suddenly crackled into life against Brugge on Tuesday, the passing quicker, the movement sharper, the intent unmistakable.
And there is more firepower still to come.
Ibrahim Mbaye, a marquee summer arrival, and Johan Manzambi, fresh from being named Ballon d'Or Young Talent of the Year nominee, are yet to start in the league. Both could be unleashed on Saturday. Their introduction would not just add quality; it would add jeopardy to a narrative Villa are desperate to avoid.
No English league side has ever begun consecutive seasons by failing to score in their first four games. Villa stand one blank away from owning that unwanted piece of history.
History of another kind, though, leans heavily in their favour.
The Villans have rattled off six straight Premier League home wins against Nottingham Forest. The last time these sides met, Villa tore Forest apart 4-0 to book their place in the Europa League final, a ruthless dismantling that underlined the gulf between them at that moment.
Yet even that reference point feels dated.
Six of the starting XI from that night, and nine of the 16 players used, have since left the club. Emery’s project has rolled into a new phase, the squad reshaped, the dressing room refreshed. The badge is the same, the expectations familiar, but the cast has changed.
Forest arrive with their own upheaval – and a manager who knows exactly how to spoil a Villa party.
Oliver Glasner, now in charge at the City Ground, has not yet found a Premier League win this season. Forest are three games in without a victory, and they have not beaten Villa away since 1994. On paper, this is a daunting trip.
For Glasner, it might feel like an opportunity.
The Austrian has become a very specific problem for Emery and for Villa. Across seven meetings, all while in charge of Crystal Palace, Glasner never lost to Emery’s side. The aggregate score is brutal: 19-4 in his favour. Twice he walked into Villa Park and walked out with victories, during a 41-match home sequence in which Villa were otherwise untouchable.
Those numbers are not a quirk; they are a pattern.
Glasner has only once put together a longer unbeaten run against a fellow manager. He has never enjoyed a better record against any counterpart without losing at all. For Emery, this is the longest winless stretch he has endured against another coach in his career.
So Villa’s resurgence meets its strangest obstacle: a manager who seems to see their weaknesses clearer than most.
Emery has repaired the structure, the crowd is back onside, and new signings are ready to step into the spotlight. Forest, still searching for their first league win and their identity under Glasner, should be underdogs.
But if there is one man who will not treat Villa Park as a fortress, it is the one standing in the away dugout.
