Ollie Watkins kickstarted Aston Villa’s perfect evening as his 100th goal for the club enabled Unai Emery’s side to cruise into an all-English Europa League semi-final against Nottingham Forest.

The England striker, seeking a late recall into Thomas Tuchel’s World Cup squad, tapped home in the 16th minute before goals from Emiliano Buendía and Morgan Rogers, making amends for a spurned penalty, put the tie to bed by half-time.

Ezri Konsa, who had set this emphatic 7-1 aggregate victory in motion with the first goal in the first leg last week, rounded off a satisfying night by volleying home after Tammy Abraham headed on a corner.

Emery, seeking to win this competition as a manager for the fifth time, could barely have asked for a more forgiving quarter-final. Villa can now return to their parallel bid for Champions League qualification, through the Premier League in which they are seven points clear of sixth-placed Chelsea ahead of Sunday’s visit from Sunderland, having barely broken sweat.

Watkins’ nerve-settler was his fifth goal in seven games, and a new club record 10th in Europe, as he continues his return towards top form since his exclusion from the England squad. If there is a better all-round striker available to Tuchel as Harry Kane’s deputy, Watkins would like to hear the conversation.

“For Ollie Watkins, today was a special day,” Emery said. “We need him scoring goals, getting assists, but we need others getting their numbers as well. Strikers are very important.”

In the first all-English European semi-final since Arsenal and Manchester United met in the 2008-09 Champions League, Villa will play away to Forest – returning to where they drew 1-1 in the Premier League last Sunday – in the first leg on 30 April before the return leg at Villa Park on 7 May.

“We have something similar, [as] both clubs have won the Champions League, Nottingham Forest twice,” Emery said. “So it’s historic. Now to play a semi-final is very important for us, for them and for our supporters. I know how difficult it is to win semi-finals.”

Already 3-1 to the good from the first leg, Emery named an unchanged Villa lineup for successive European games for the first time in his reign. Unbeaten in Europe when John McGinn and Youri Tielemans both start, Villa were on the front foot from the off. Starting up front alongside Watkins in a compact 4-4-2 formation, Rogers dropped deep to drive at the Italians’ defence before turning to leave the ball for Tielemans. When it came to Buendía just outside the area, his pass in behind was perfectly weighted for Rogers to surge on to and cross along the six-yard line for Watkins to knock in surely the simplest of his 13 goals this season.

It was Rogers’ header, from Lucas Digne’s cross, that deflected on to Martin Vitik’s arm to earn the penalty, with help from the video assistant referee. But Federico Ravaglia dived to save from Rogers, without a goal since early February.

“He’ll be disappointed with the penalty,” said captain McGinn. “But sometimes when you’re that age [23], and you’ve got that expectation on you – he’s a big player for Villa and England – he takes small dips in form, but he’s a leader in the group and he showed that he can bounce back from disappointing moments. We’ll need him until the end of the season and thankfully he didn’t get a yellow card, and a few of us didn’t either.”

Rogers and McGinn were among five Villa players for whom a yellow card would have ruled them out of the semi-final first leg.

There had been a three-minute delay from the handball till the penalty but it took only one more minute for Villa to make amends after Rogers’ miss. From Digne’s ensuing throw-in over Juan Miranda’s head, Buendía was able to twinkle-toe his way in from the byline and crash his shot inside the near post.

To be beaten in that area once can be deemed a misfortune but to allow a shot inside your near post twice looks like carelessness. So when McGinn fed the ball out wide to Rogers, Ravaglia should really not have allowed the shot to beat him again. But he did, and the Villa faithful were not complaining.

Since losing here in September, in the group stage, Bologna had won five successive away games in this competition. But Villa have been imperious at home in continental combat, this their third successive European quarter-final, having now won 16 of their 18 major European matches here, and seem to be finding their mojo again at just the right time.