We round up the key Fantasy Premier League (FPL) talking points from Nottingham Forest v Aston Villa in our Scout Notes summary.
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In a game low on quality, Nottingham Forest and Aston Villa closed Gameweek 10 by sharing a point at The City Ground.
Emmanuel Dennis (£5.8m) opened the scoring for the hosts, but Ashley Young’s (£4.4m) strike seven minutes later drew the visitors back on level terms.
Forest were certainly better in defence and looked more compact as a unit, although it’s debatable whether or not they were truly tested, with the xG score of 0.28 – 0.72 the lowest of any match in the Premier League so far this season.
The impressive Morgan Gibbs-White (£5.5m) proved to be a handful at times for the Villa defence, and it was his free-kick that was converted by Dennis in the first half.
Elsewhere, the inclusion of Serge Aurier (£4.5m) at right-back in Steve Cooper’s 4-3-3 meant Neco Williams (£4.1m) dropped to the bench, a concern for his owners with Gameweek 12 on the horizon.
The Welsh international was introduced just before the hour mark with Aurier walking a tightrope after a needless early booking, and he did add energy, but it remains to be seen if he has done enough to earn a start at Molineux on Saturday.
“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 I think we have to accept tonight was a forward step and we should only look on the positives and that will be our focus to keep building.
The reality is we have been conceding way too many goals and chances and I have not really liked us out of possession with our positioning and duels and picking up second balls and going with runners. For all the tactical stuff I loved the fight in the team and I think we did that better tonight.
Is it my favourite way of playing? No. But it was right for tonight and in the end we managed to get up the pitch and take the lead. We let them back in the game but for all the possession they had they haven’t created loads of chances. I thought we could have done better on the counter attack.” – Steve Cooper
Following tonight’s draw, Aston Villa are undefeated in their last four games, but there are huge issues in attack.
Once again, Steven Gerrard will be disappointed with his side’s creativity, having been unable to break down a Leeds United side that played with 10 men for almost the entire second half only last week.
Indeed, their 95.5 minutes per xG tally is the fourth worst in the division so far this season.
Most of Villa’s threat stemmed from their left, but it’s now just one goal contribution for Philippe Coutinho (£6.7m) in his last 20 Premier League appearances, who was taken off in the second half after another ineffectual display.
Ollie Watkins (£7.2m), meanwhile, also looks low on confidence, with his last goal arriving at Crystal Palace in Gameweek 3.
Worryingly for Villa, all six of their remaining Premier League games before the World Cup are against sides that are placed 11th or higher in the table.
“I don’t think we created enough to say we deserved to win. I wanted us to create more clear-cut chances. I don’t think there was too much wrong with the performance up to a certain point.
It wasn’t a foul [for the free-kick leading up to the goal]. Tyrone Mings got a clear contact on the ball but saying that we still have to defend the set piece better. It was a fantastic equaliser 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.
We are grinding at the moment. We are close to turning draws into wins but to do that we need big players to step forward for us and give us a little more quality in the last bit of our play. In the last couple of games we are going away frustrated. We have tried to change our system a bit to be a bit more bold. We finished with a really bold team out there to try and find that bit of magic and quality.” – Steven Gerrard
Nottingham Forest XI: Henderson; Aurier (Williams 58), Cook, McKenna, Toffolo; Freuler, Yates, Kouyate; Johnson, Gibbs-White (O’Brien 90), Dennis (Surridge 71)
Aston Villa XI: Martinez; Cash, Konsa, Mings, Young; Douglas Luiz, McGinn (Dendoncker 77), Ramsey (Archer 81); Buendia, Coutinho (Ings 65), Watkins
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