Aston Villa's FA Cup dream over as Crystal Palace run riot at Wembley

National World - LocalTV

Birmingham World reporter Charlie Haffenden's reaction after Crystal Palace 3-0 Aston Villa in the FA Cup semi-final at Wembley.

Transcript

00:00Aston Villa's FA Cup dream is over at the Shelly final stage after today's 3-0 thrashing from Crystal Palace.

00:08The Eagles running out, dominant, it's really here at Wembley Stadium.

00:12The Villa Park faithful, around 40,000 of them in East and Wembley, going home incredibly disappointed.

00:18Whilst their team hardly laid a glove in that first half, and in the second half, Dean Henderson, Palace's goalkeeper,

00:23kept out so many of Villa's efforts, unable to get back into the game.

00:26Unai Emery's men, pretty hapless, to be honest with you.

00:29Paul Torres, an awful performance from him.

00:32Yuri Tielemann's dispossessed ahead of two goals.

00:34Ezri Konza, not himself, beat into the ball so many times.

00:37Villa just not winning enough duels in the centre of the park.

00:40Palace, they might not have had much of the ball in the phases of this game,

00:43but they were clinical on the counter-attack.

00:45Eze got things started, Eberichi Eze with an incredible goal from about 30 yards,

00:50or maybe a little bit closer than that, maybe 25, 20 yards,

00:53but it was a first-time finish, gave Emi Martinez no chance.

00:56So much power whipping into the goal about half an hour into the game.

01:00And then there's Milo Saar scoring two, one deep in the second half stoppage time

01:04to make sure of the points, to make sure of the victory, and to get his place into the final.

01:09The first goal from Saar, Palace's second, was also a fantastic strike from outside the area.

01:14Tielemann's given the ball away.

01:15Warton was the one who chopped in, and then Saar firing in for about 25 yards from goal

01:20into the bottom left-hand corner.

01:22And then the third was a counter-attack.

01:24Tielemann's once again dispossessed.

01:25Potentially a foul, but it was a bit of a brush off the shoulder,

01:28and not really too much contact.

01:30And then Saar able to fire past Martinez for 3-0.

01:33As I say, and as I allude to, it's just not enough energy for a Master and Villa today.

01:38The tempo wasn't there.

01:40Palace, they had one less day to prepare for the game, but you wouldn't have known it.

01:43They were really winning as many draws they possibly could over Glasner's team.

01:47Really fired up.

01:49I mean, you'd expect Villa to be fired up themselves, wouldn't you?

01:52First visit here to Wembley Stadium since 2020.

01:55First visit for a lot of these players in Aston Villa colours.

01:58However, the FA Cup run is over.

02:00It will not be going to the final.

02:02It will be Nottingham Forest or Manchester City playing Crystal Palace.

02:05And fair play to Palace.

02:06They played a very good game today.

02:08They saw off Villa's threat very well.

02:10Henderson, as I said, having a fantastic game between the sticks.

02:12I mean, you've got the quality of Eze, the quality of Saar, their link-up play.

02:17Jean-Philippe Petetti might have missed the penalty, but was very involved in all of the goals today.

02:22Just too much quality in the end for Villa, who themselves have got so much quality and depth.

02:25No injuries.

02:26There shouldn't be any excuses in terms of energy as well, because Emery's been able to rotate recently,

02:31even amongst a big schedule.

02:33So, so disappointing.

02:34And Palace, as I say, deserves the pictures.

02:36Congratulations to them.

02:37Villa, that's the drawing board ahead of the rest of the Premier League season.

Category

Transcript

Recommended