Gillingham 1-2 VILLA: Doncaster rematch on the cards?

By: Chris | January 4th, 2009

I think my love affair with the FA Cup is over. Aston Villa went down to Kent today to face Gillingham at Priestfield, eventually triumphing thanks to two goals from birthday boy James Milner. I watched it at home on ITV, and the whole experience made me sick.

I think it’s because the Cup has been such a damp squib for Villa since the 2000 final. We constantly draw Manchester United early and get dumped out. This year, we began with a distinctly tough away game in which we played against 11 lads desperate to make an impression and a referee keen as mustard to help them.

ITV commentator Peter Drury’s dribbling upset-baiting just put the cherry on top of the hellish FA Cup cake. I hope he’s still gutted we won – he certainly was at full time. Pathetic.

Referee Keith Stroud, from Gillingham (the other one), was appalling. I’m all for tough tackling in FA Cup matches, but the Premier League team has to be allowed to do the same. That said, he had three key decisions to make this afternoon and got two right. Despite Gillingham’s protests, Zat Knight’s first half tackle was a gem and no red card was forthcoming.

In the second half, one of Gillingham’s players was yellow carded for a foul on Ashley Young on the half way line. I think it was worthy of a red, not because he was the last man (he wasn’t), but because it was a particularly nasty challenge.

The penalty, despite Gillingham, Simeon Jackson, ITV and every other moaning Cup romantic, was a definite penalty. You can’t do that in the penalty area. Simple.

Credit to Gills today. It was a tough, tough game. We weren’t allowed by the referee to fight back but the fact remains they beat us physically today. But class is class, and you’re going to have to score more than one to knock out a top four club in the third round.

Villa were poor today, as we have been a lot recently. But we’re getting the job done and that’s all you can ask. A lot of Villa fans are moaning about the pitch, but you can’t play on a carpet every week. I think given the temperature, the games called off and the early kick off, the Gillingham groundsman did a magnificent job to make the pitch playable at all. Shame our boys didn’t cope so well with the odd bobble.

Good luck to Gillingham for the rest of the season. They played well today.

Next up, we have Cheltenham Town or Doncaster Rovers away. Again, that’s a mighty tough draw and we won’t be taking it for granted. Personally, I want Doncaster to win through. It’s time we got our revenge on them for our last visit, an atrocious 3-0 defeat in the worst performance of the O’Leary (spit) years.

Bring it on.