The FA Cup fifth round replay between Aston Villa and Crystal Palace at Villa Park on Wednesday Feb 24 2010.
Martin O'Neill's cups truly runneth over as his Aston Villa side reached the FA Cup quarter-finals by virtue of this victory over Crystal Palace at Villa Park on Wednesday night.
It is the first time O'Neill has been at this stage of the competition during his managerial career while on Sunday he makes the more familiar trip to Wembley in the League Cup final against Manchester United.
Two late penalties by John Carew avoided the nuisance value of extra-time before the big event at the weekend after Gabriel Agbonlahor had opened the scoring in this fifth-round replay that may well be Palace manager Neil Warnock's penultimate game in charge before he departs to join QPR. As an FA Cup swansong, it was a pretty average at best.
Villa's relentless wave of attacks, mostly channelled down the left, was finally rewarded as half-time approached, a routine set piece and execution which rather belied the home side's previous intricate but futile attempts to translate their overwhelming superiority into goals.
Julián Speroni was busy between the Palace sticks from the kick-off but the Palace goalkeeper should have been beaten when Agbonlahor pounced on Alan Lee's careless control, the England forward's left-foot finish lacking conviction and allowing Speroni to make the save in the 16th minute.
If Palace's Argentine was found wanting, his defenders came to the rescue, Matthew Lawrence's knee intercepting an Ashley Young effort as the winger sliced his way past trailing markers once more.
Of all their chances, though, the clearest was created by James Milner and Stephen Warnock on the half-hour but with the formality of a tap-in awaiting Carew inside the six yard area, Warnock's touch deserted him, his centre motoring untouched across the face of goal.
It seemed only a matter of time before Palace would concede and sure enough, they duly obliged as Young's corner was met by Agbonlahor who nudged the simplest of headers over the line. Ironically, the corner kick was a controversial decision with Milner getting the final touch.
It was a disputed late corner that allowed Villa to equalise and secure a replay at Selhurst Park, inspiring the predictable Neil Warnock outrage. His incandescence on this occasion seemed less apparent, on the touchline at least.
The goal might have galvanised Villa but in fact it had the opposite effect as Palace finally began to make a fist off the tie. Neil Danns and Nick Clarke were more prominent in midfield although the visitors were still vulnerable to the pace of Villa's counter attacking and Young almost punished them until Speroni dived to his left to tip his angled shot to safety.
Danns, though, went even closer as Lee's cushioned header found him in space to flash a right foot shot across the Villa bows and narrowly wide.
It was brief respite, however, as Warnock's clumsy challenge upended Lee deep inside the 18-yard box.
This time, the decision was correct and Darren Ambrose converted the spot kick with assurance to level things up in the 73rd minute with his 17th goal of the season.
The status quo did not last long. Twice in the final 10 minutes Lawrence sent Carew tumbling to the ground inside the danger area to concede penalties, the first a crude challenge from behind when caution might have been a better option.
The big Norwegian picked himself to convert the penalty and repeated the feat two minutes from the end in a troublesome spot of Déjà vu for Palace.
No comments:
Post a Comment