Aston Villa were masters of their own downfall as game management costs them against Forest

Aston Villa have played plenty of games under Unai Emery where you come away talking about the manager’s ability to influence proceedings from the touchline, but the defeat to Nottingham Forest felt like one of those rare occasions where the opposite was true, because Villa went from being the side in control of the football match to one that looked increasingly chaotic as the afternoon went on, and I think a lot of what eventually cost us was of our own making.

That is probably the most frustrating aspect of the defeat because I actually came away from the first half feeling relatively encouraged by what I had seen. Villa had not produced chance after chance, and ultimately we didn't make the period of superiority count by putting the ball in the back of the net, but there were some really nice passages of football, particularly in tight areas, and we were the side trying to make things happen. Victor Lindelof should have scored, balls flashed across the Forest goal and there were enough openings to feel that Villa were moving in the right direction, which made what followed after half-time all the more disappointing.

The enforced change with Pau Torres going off obviously disrupted things to an extent, although Tyrone Mings coming into the side is not something that concerned me particularly, but the two changes Emery made at half-time altered the shape and dynamic of the team considerably. Nicolas Jackson had been booked and there appeared to be concern about him potentially picking up another yellow card, so there may well have been an element of necessity behind that decision, but taking Hemmings off at the same time and introducing Tammy Abraham and Alysson meant Villa came out for the second half looking very different from the team that had an element of control during the opening 45 minutes.

The knock-on effect was particularly noticeable with John McGinn because I thought he had been our best attacking player during the first half. He was holding the width on the right, taking players on and causing Forest problems in an area where Villa looked capable of making something happen, but the changes resulted in McGinn moving across to the left and I thought we immediately lost something as a consequence. Alysson coming onto the pitch was not an issue in itself, and he ultimately scored Villa's goal, but I didn't understand the need to disturb something that had been working reasonably well elsewhere on the pitch when Villa had spent much of the first half on top.

The worst possible thing then happened within a minute of the restart because Villa conceded a goal which summed up much of what was to follow. There were individual mistakes within it, from Boubacar Kamara attempting a flick in an area where there was little need to take the risk through to Emi Buendía going to ground, but more concerning was how quickly the structure disappeared afterwards. Forest suddenly had their tails up, Villa became increasingly stretched and the game started to turn into the type of end-to-end contest that does not suit an Emery team, particularly with some of the players currently missing from the midfield.

That is where the game-management aspect really frustrated me because even after Villa had struggled at the beginning of the second half, there was still an opportunity to regain some control. Emery introduced Johan Manzambi and Ibrahim Mbaye on the hour and I actually thought those changes improved us, particularly Mbaye, whose directness and pace immediately gave Forest something different to think about, while McGinn was able to move into a more central position alongside Kamara. There was more energy in the team, Alysson eventually headed in McGinn's delivery and at 1-1 there was a point where I thought Villa could settle themselves down and decide whether there was an opportunity to go and win the game without leaving themselves completely exposed.

The problem was that by that stage Villa had already made all five substitutions, and doing that with half an hour of a Premier League game remaining always carries an element of risk. I spoke to a former Villa player after the game, who was very surprised by the use of five substitutes, so quickly. I guess you could feasibly argue that by the point Maatsen got injured, you probably would have made 5 substitutions anyway, so perhaps that point should be debunked.

Ian Maatsen's injury subsequently left Villa with ten men and obviously Emery could not have known that was going to happen, while the nature of the challenge which caused the injury is a separate discussion, but this is precisely why you generally want to retain some flexibility for the closing stages of a game. Villa instead ended up with McGinn playing at left-back, Manzambi alongside an increasingly tired Kamara and a team that had very little opportunity to reorganise properly.

Forest always looked capable of hurting us in transition by that point and the warning signs were there long before the eventual winner arrived. Zion Suzuki made important saves, Villa were becoming increasingly easy to play through and there were moments where Kamara was effectively being asked to patrol central midfield on his own while others pushed forward looking for a winner. Forest eventually had 22 attempts and, although I thought Villa had been the better team during the opening half, just, Forest's superiority after the break was greater than anything we had managed before it.

There will naturally be a temptation to put everything down to Villa being in transition because this is a very different group to the one that finished last season, and I do think we have to accept that there will be performances where things look disjointed while the new players settle and Emery works out exactly how he wants this team to function. We saw some encouraging signs in midweek and there were positives during the first half against Forest as well, so this isn't about suddenly deciding that everything is wrong four Premier League games into the season.

However, being in transition cannot become an explanation for every problem and I don't think Villa needed to lose this particular football match. We didn't take advantage when we were on top, we altered the team significantly at half-time, we became too open when Forest gained momentum and we used all of our substitutions with a significant portion of the game still remaining. The Maatsen injury was unfortunate and undoubtedly had a major impact on the closing stages, but Villa had already allowed the match to become far more chaotic than it needed to be before that happened.

That is probably the strangest thing about watching Villa at the moment because "scattergun" is not a word I have associated with Emery very often during his time at the club. His best Villa teams have been capable of slowing games down, changing the rhythm and understanding when to attack and when to take the sting out of an opponent, whereas against Forest we appeared to lose that ability completely once the second half began.

There is far too much evidence of Emery getting these decisions right over the last few years for one afternoon to alter my opinion of him, and some of the best managers in Europe have discovered how difficult it is to get the better of him, but Oliver Glasner continues to cause him problems and this was another afternoon where Glasner's structure ultimately proved more effective than ours. Villa have to learn from it because four Premier League games have now passed without a win, both home matches have ended in defeat and a ground that has become such a huge part of our success under Emery has not provided us with a point yet this season.

There were circumstances that went against Villa, there are important players missing and there is a new team trying to knit together, but none of those things completely explain away what happened. We had enough control during the first half to put ourselves in a position to win the game and, having eventually fought our way back to 1-1, we had another opportunity to make sure we at least took something from it.

Instead, Villa allowed the game to get away from them, and on this occasion I think we were the masters of our own downfall.