Nottingham Forest lost for the first time in the Premier League for five matches as Aston Villa ran out 2-1 winners at Villa Park to bolster their own Champions League aspirations.
The Reds needed to make sure that they stayed compact in the opening exchanges of this game and ultimately, two minutes of madness cost the team a chance of a result.
Morgan Rogers and Donyell Malan scored on 13 minutes and 15 minutes, respectively and although Jota Silva got a goal back, the writing was on the wall to a certain degree for Forest.
Nuno Espirito Santo will be happy with what he saw in the second period and it’s fair to say the introduction of Silva did give the Reds a different dimension to their play at Villa Park.
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This was an evening to forget for Forest defender Morato after being restored to the starting line-up as Espirito Santo went with three central defenders for this contest.
Alan Smith claimed that decision backfired, with Forest looking somewhat overawed by the Villa front line in the first 45 minutes.
One thing you can’t do against Villa is allow their attackers to smell blood and that’s exactly what Rogers did when Morato inexplicably tweaked his shin pads with the ball in play!
Redknapp was on Sky Sports for the live coverage of the game but he couldn’t actually believe what he was watching in the first half.
He said: “I can’t understand it, what he does, I don’t get it. He’s messing around with his shin pads, Rogers wants to make that run now, how on earth can you be defending like that when Youri Tielemans has got his head up like that. You can’t do that, it’s really poor by him.”
Morato stats vs Aston Villa
This wasn’t the Brazilian’s best performance he will ever have and perhaps starting the game seemed to catch him out a little, but with ring rust creeping in.
During the campaign, Morato has been very useful as an impact substitute and for a while, Forest didn’t concede when he was on the pitch.
| Morato stats vs Aston Villa | Total |
| Minutes | 74 |
| Tackles | 3 |
| Clearances | 1 |
| Who Scored Rating | 5.83 |
The player won’t be defined by this one, with arguably Forest now having played their toughest remaining fixture of the 2024/25 campaign
Forest face Everton next week and if Morato gets the nod again, he will hope to learn his lesson from his moment of madness against Villa.
