Chris Wood gives Nottingham Forest narrow semi-final edge over Aston Villa

Emiliano Martínez makes a fine save to deny Nottingham Forest’s Igor Jesus in the first half. Photograph: Andrew Boyers/Action Images/Reuters

For Villa, there was a major boost in that Amadou Onana was passed fit after a knee problem to start alongside Tielemans at the base of midfield in place of Lamare Bogarde, Emery’s sole change from defeat at Fulham last weekend. After an anxious start, this quickly developed into a frenetic game. Ola Aina, though, was typically cool, perhaps too composed when cushioning a header back to Ortega with Emiliano Buendía lurking. At the other end Ezri Konsa made a smart block to thwart Igor Jesus, who supported Wood in attack, and Buendía then headed away under pressure. Anderson was overzealous in the challenge on Watkins and was fortunate to escape punishment for catching the England striker on his ankle before claiming the ball.

The moment of the first half, however, was undeniably Martínez’s superb stop to prevent the hosts seizing the lead on 33 minutes. Anderson played a wonderful dinked pass behind the Villa back line for Morgan Gibbs-White and Gibbs-White squared the ball. Igor Jesus met the cross and while his attempt to side-foot the ball home was not as clean as he would have liked, it seemed it would be sufficient to ripple Martínez’s net. But the Argentina goalkeeper had other ideas, scrambling across his goal-line to keep the ball out, eventually smothering it as Igor Jesus shook his head in disbelief.

Emery predicted a “long game”, in other words a tight contest and things were finely balanced when the Villa manager was forced into a change nine minutes into the second half. Onana pulled up with a hamstring injury, one of his final actions heading clear after Anderson flighted a dangerous cross into the box for Wood. Villa came close to gaining the lead after the break, Ortega making an instinctive save to deny Watkins. Rogers, as he often does, looked to bend a left-foot shot into the far corner of goal and, going wide, Watkins attempted to divert the ball goalwards. Ortega was alert and repelled the ball with his right forearm.

Forest’s threat had subsided until Digne’s moment of madness. Gibbs-White’s cross from the left was sailing out of play, or so Digne thought, but Hutchinson refused to deem it a lost cause. The winger crossed from the byline and Digne raised both hands, expecting a goal-kick to follow. Then the video assistant referee, Tiago Martins, encouraged Pinheiro to review the incident on the pitch-side VAR monitor. Once the penalty was awarded, Wood hammered the spot-kick past Martinez to give Forest a potentially priceless advantage.