Unai Emery believes Aston Villa will use their experience of semi-final defeats "to do better this time" against Nottingham Forest in the Europa League.

Villa travel to the City Ground on Thursday for the first leg of their Europa League semi-final, the third time Emery has guided the club to the last four of a competition.

The Villans lost to Olympiacos in the semi-finals of the Conference League in 2023-24, while they were knocked out in the last four of the FA Cup by Crystal Palace last season.

However, Emery is set to manage in his seventh Europa League semi-final (since 2009-10) – no other manager has been in more than three.

He lost his first one in 2011-12 with Valencia but has progressed from each of his last five, with Sevilla (2013-14, 2014-15, 2015-16), Arsenal (2018-19) and Villarreal (2020-21).

Emery is now keen to use Villa's previous hurt in semi-finals to their advantage this time around.

"Different competitions, different circumstances. The semi-final against Olympiacos two years ago, we lost, but we were also in the Premier League fighting to finish fourth," said Emery.

"We finished that season tired and with some injuries. We lost, we accepted it, and it was a process we went through at that moment.

"Last year, we played the FA Cup semi-final and went to Wembley. It was my first experience of a semi-final at Wembley in the FA Cup.

"We lost against Crystal Palace - another experience. But they were two different situations: against Olympiacos it was over two legs, and against Crystal Palace in the FA Cup it was 90 minutes.

"We are going to use those experiences to do better this time."

Villa have won 11 Europa League matches this season – only Porto in 2010-11 (12), Atletico Madrid in 2011-12 (13) and Chelsea in 2018-19 (12) have won more in a single season.

They have won their last nine in a row. The only English team to win 10 on the spin in major European football is Manchester City between May 2023 and March 2024.

Emery anticipates a difficult match against Forest, who defeated Porto and Midtjylland in the previous rounds.

"I expect a difficult match and a very intelligent match," added Emery.

"We must play intelligently and try to enjoy it too - we must enjoy the preparation, the match itself, after the match, and the days between the legs.

"In the Europa League, the way they are playing is very competitive. In the last two rounds against Porto and Midtjylland, they competed fantastically, even with tight results."