Dave Woodhall endures a bad case of big stage-fright.
It usually ends in January at a half-empty Villa Park, so having Villa’s annual FA Cup disappointment taking place in May, in front of a global audience approaching a billion, could be seen as an improvement.
The opposition was certainly a vast improvement; instead of the under-strength Championship side the team normally capitulate to, they were up against an Arsenal side on form. That was where the problems began.
Villa, at their best, are capable of mid-table performances. They had a few decent results to get out of trouble during the league run-in but overall finished more or less where they deserved. Arsenal, yet again, qualified for the Champion League and on their day can probably beat any team in Europe. Their biggest failing is inconsistency; Villa’s is that they aren’t good enough in the first place.
If Villa were going to win on Saturday every player was going to have to put in the performance of his life. Arsenal on the other hand, didn’t actually have to do anything particularly well. All they had to do was not do anything wrong and wait for the opposition to make mistakes. And there were plenty of them.
To put it mildly, Villa didn’t show up. My biggest fear, that the team had put so much into beating Liverpool in the semi-final that they had nothing left, came true. It didn’t help that Alan Hutton, Fabian Delph and Tom Cleverley, three team members who can usually be relied on to put a foot in, were booked in the early stages and from then on seemed hesitant about tackling.
At the other end, Villa had a couple of penalty shouts rejected but as they were three down by this stage we can’t claim that they would have made much difference. Maybe on reflection that Liverpool game was Villa’s cup final. It was a day when everything went right and, added to the outpouring of emotion after the sixth round, neither players not supporters could gee themselves up for one more effort.
The players who we needed the match-winning performances from were poor; the solid grafters who success would be built around never got into the game. Arsene Wenger got his tactics right, Tim Sherwood’s were woefully wrong. With Christian Benteke tightly marked, Jack Grealish unable to repeat his semi-final display and Delph seeming to be trying too hard Villa were always in trouble, outplayed from kick-off until the final whistle.
Four-nil might or might not have been a reflection of the game depending on your point of view but just one of the goals was really worthy of such a stage. The other three came from defending that would only be worthy of this stage if the Birmingham AFA ever hold their cup final at Wembley.
At least Tim Sherwood indicated that he knows the extent of the problem when he said straight after the game that several of the players would be leaving during the summer. The quality of their replacements, however, will be a matter for some conjecture. Whatever the close season might bring in terms of new owners and players there’s going to have to be some major redevelopment to forgive and forget this particular debacle.
But to end on a note of optimism, the last team to lose 4-0 in an FA Cup final at Wembley were Chelsea in 1994. They’ve not done too badly since then.