As the UEFA Europa League returns this week, football writer Ben Bloom previews the Premier League clubs' fixtures and assesses their opponents.
The UEFA Europa League is back, and two English clubs are looking to emulate the success of their fellow Premier League sides who competed in it last season.
Despite their respective domestic struggles, Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester United ensured there was an all-English Europa League final in May, with the London side prevailing 1-0 in Bilbao.
Now it is the turn of Aston Villa and Nottingham Forest to see if they can replicate Spurs and Man Utd's march through the league phase and every knockout round.
Crystal Palace had been due to take one of English football’s Europa League spots by virtue of their FA Cup triumph, which secured the club’s first ever major piece of silverware.
However, UEFA rejected Palace's admission to this season’s Europa League, and instead put them in the UEFA Conference League, because of a breach of the multi-club ownership rules set by European football’s governing body.
Forest, who originally qualified for the Conference League after finishing seventh in the Premier League last season, have subsequently moved up to the Europa League.
Both Villa and Forest begin their Europa League campaign in the competition’s league phase, which was expanded to 36 teams under a new format inaugurated in 2024/25. Each club will play eight games against opponents from other nations – the fixtures were decided in last month’s draw – to determine the overall league standings.
The top eight teams will advance straight to the round of 16, the clubs ranked ninth to 24th will contest the knockout phase play-offs, and the sides who occupy the places from 25th to 36th will be eliminated.
While Europa League fixtures will continue to occupy their traditional Thursday slot throughout the season, this opening week has been granted exclusivity over other European competitions, with matches spread across both Wednesday and Thursday.
Real Betis v Nottingham Forest
Wednesday 24 September, 20:00 BST
Guiding Forest’s return to European football after 30 years away from continental activity is a man who knows this competition well.
Ange Postecoglou was the mastermind behind Spurs' Europa League triumph last season – a fact that was almost certainly a key factor in his appointment at Forest.
However, the Australian’s tenure has not got off to the best of starts – Forest are winless in his first three games – but Postecoglou showed with Spurs last season that domestic unrest need not inhibit European aspirations.
His new club have a fine pedigree as double European Cup winners in 1978/79 and 1979/80, but they are about to play in Europe for the first time since 1996. Forest only returned to the Premier League four seasons ago after 23 years out of the top flight.
Their opening Europa League opponents are Real Betis, who reached their first ever European final in May, losing 4-1 to Chelsea in the Conference League showpiece.
Manuel Pellegrini's side are looking to build on a sixth-place finish in La Liga last season and have lost just once in six league games so far this campaign, despite having to make do without the inspirational figure of captain Isco, who fractured his leg in a pre-season friendly.
The hosts’ main threat is likely to come from Colombian striker Cucho Hernandez – once of Watford – and former Man Utd winger Antony, who left Old Trafford on a permanent basis at the start of this month.
Aston Villa v Bologna
Thursday 25 September, 20:00 BST
So far this season, Villa have looked a shadow of the side that excelled in 2024/25, when giving eventual winners Paris Saint-Germain a fright in the Champions League quarter-finals and only narrowly failing to qualify for that competition again on the final day of the Premier League season.
Having gone four Premier League games without even scoring prior to last weekend, they finally found the net against Sunderland but could only draw 1-1, leaving them as one of just two top-flight clubs without a win this term.
Nonetheless, given Villa's performances last season, and the quality of their squad, they enter the Europa League as many people’s favourites to win a first piece of European silverware since lifting the European Cup in 1981/82.
Doing so would give Unai Emery – already the most successful manager in Europa League/UEFA Cup history – a fifth success in the competition, having already won it three times with Sevilla and once with Villarreal.
The Villans begin their Europa League campaign by welcoming Bologna to Villa Park for the second time in as many seasons, after beating the Italian side 2-0 in the league phase of the Champions League last October.
Bologna only finished ninth in Serie A last season, but Vincenzo Italiano's side won the Coppa Italia to claim the club's first major trophy since 1973/74.
Riccardo Orsolini, their leading goalscorer in that campaign, has continued his scoring touch in a mixed start to the season. The Italian winger has scored in two wins, but Bologna have lost their other two Serie A games.
Bologna have never beaten an English team in four UEFA competition matches.