Everton 3-1 VILLA: FA Cup drops off Villa wishlist
By: Chris | February 15th, 2009Two cups gone, one left. And in truth, the FA Cup has been something of a ballache this season, so I’m not exactly sad to see it go.
Martin O’Neill would never admit it, but Aston Villa weren’t at the races today and the manager, his players and the fans don’t appear to care. I certainly don’t.
Don’t get me wrong, we played to win and Everton were the better side. But when we twice fell behind it really didn’t look as though we were going to bust a gut to get ourselves back into the match. That’s not intended to be disrespectful to Everton, but today’s match meant more to them than it did to us.
Villa got off to a poor start, Jack Rodwell thumping in from an early corner after Stiliyan Petrov got away with handling the ball on the line. Four minutes later Villa were level. Tony Hibbert, whether he likes it or not, brought down Gabriel Agbonlahor in the Everton box. James Milner stepped up and luckily squeezed a shocking penalty under an unfortunate Tim Howard.
2-1 wasn’t far away, though. Victor Anichebe was brought down by Steve Sidwell (unnecessarily – Zat Knight looked to have the situation under control) and Mikel Arteta swept in the spot kick.
From then on, Everton looked comfortable, and sealed it with a winner from Tim Cahill. Zat Knight and Curtis Davies, so good recently, did very poorly to let Cahill take an easy finish.
It wasn’t the best performance, but previous posts about the FA Cup explain why I really don’t give a shite. Major plus point was Stiliyan Petrov, the best player on the park even in damp defeat. Oh, and we don’t have to play West Ham or Middlesbrough in the next round.
Moving on…
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Comments
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It would have been nice to win and all, but I agree – we don’t have the depth to really compete in more than two competitions (Manchester Utd may be the only English team that does this season) and the FA Cup was last in the queue for me. After all, Villa play in two domestic Cups every year, and the team is pretty familiar with most of the possible opponents. But playing in Europe is a whole different game, and largely a new one to our squad. If we’re to make a respectable showing in the CL – assuming we qualify, of course – it’s vital to wring out every bit of European experience this year.
I just wish we could have bid farewell to the Cup without picking up three more yellows…
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