Aston Villa vs. Nottingham Forest: Head-to-head record and past meetings

Aston Villa kickstarted their 2026 with a comfortable 3-1 victory over Nottingham Forest on gameweek 20 of the 2025-26 Premier League season.

Unai Emery's side bounced back from their disappointing end to 2025, which saw them lose 4-1 to Arsenal, and the victory moved them up to second in the Premier League standings.

Meanwhile, Nottingham Forest fell to their fourth consecutive Premier League defeat, leaving them just narrowly one place above the relegation zone.

Here, Sports Mole looks at the head-to-head record and previous meetings between Aston Villa and Nottingham Forest.

Head-to-head record

Previous meetings: 135

Aston Villa wins: 64

Draws: 31

Nott'm Forest wins: 40

A historically momentous fixture, Aston Villa and Nottingham Forest met for the very first time all the way back in the 1880-81 FA Cup, where the Lions clinched a 2-1 win in the second round of the tournament.

That triumph represents one of 64 that the Villans have managed over Nottingham Forest, who boast significantly fewer victories with 40 to their name, while 31 of their other 135 battles have ended honours even.

Unai Emery's side emerged on the correct end of the scoreline during the most recent encounter at Villa Park in January 2026, where a John McGinn brace and Ollie Watkins wondergoal earned the Villans a 3-1 triumph.

That victory made it two successive wins for Aston Villa in this fixture, following a 2-1 win in April 2025, where two quickfire strikes from Morgan Rogers and Donyell Malen got the Lions over the Line.

Villa's home success in the spring saw them avenge the events of December 2024, where a dramatic late turnaround saw Nikola Milenkovic and Anthony Elanga cancel out Jhon Duran's opening strike in a bedlam-inducing 2-1 win for Nuno Espirito Santo's team.

However, Villa prevailed in a six-goal thriller 4-2 on their own patch in February 2024, and their unbeaten home run over Forest now stands at 10 games in all competitions, a sequence that includes an extraordinary 5-5 Championship draw in November 2018.

Tammy Abraham scored a fabulous four goals in that 10-goal spectacular, where Villa came from 2-0 down and let a 5-4 lead slip, but it has nevertheless been over 30 years since the Lions lost at home to Nottingham Forest.

Indeed, the Tricky Trees last prevailed at Villa Park all the way back in October 1994, but Nottingham Forest can proudly show off the most emphatic win in this fixture, a 6-0 First Division drubbing back in September 1986.

In contrast, Aston Villa are yet to beat Nottingham Forest by five goals or more, although they have prevailed by four goals on five separate occasions, including an enthralling 7-3 victory in December 1903.