'Unai Emery's worst day': Matt Maher & Jonny Drury on Aston Villa's FA Cup Wembley defeat

Express & Star

Matt Maher and Jonny Drury give their take on Aston Villa's FA Cup semi-final defeat at the hands of Crystal Palace.  Villa went into the game as favourites, but were behind when Eberechi Eze lashed in a stunner in the first half.  Jean-Philippe Mateta missed a spot kick, before Ismalia Sarr rifled in a second to give Villa a mountain to climb.  They pushed but couldn't find a way back into the game, before Sarr compounded their misery in added time.

Transcript

00:00Hello, welcome to ExpressingStyle.com, my name is Johnny Drury, I'm here with Chief Sportswriter Matt Mayer

00:06after a day that started with such optimism for Villa, hoping of a cup final, but ended in a bit of a disaster really.

00:14Matt, what's going on?

00:15I think disaster's probably a fair word to use, I actually think this was probably Unai Emery's worst day as Villa manager.

00:23Look, I know they lost to Stevenage very early on in his reign, which was a humiliating result against the League 2 opposition,

00:28but there was such expectation coming into this game, such an opportunity to end this 29-year trophy drought,

00:39which is going to, you know, the days of going over 30 years now.

00:43Villa, I know they lost late on at Manchester City on Tuesday night, but they'd won 10 of their last 12 games,

00:48they came in with plenty of momentum, and just right from the start really, the whole approach to the game just seemed wrong,

00:56you know, from the moments the teams were announced, you know, I was really surprised with the team,

01:01I was really surprised that Toro Ming didn't start ahead of Pau Torres to deal with Jean-Felic Mateta,

01:06who scored, you know, who caused a lot of problems before, I was quite surprised, Ian Martsen didn't start

01:12to deal with the pace of Kaya Lassar, who seems to turn into Pelé every time he plays Villa,

01:17who, I don't know, he's still got to be in his bonnet about them pulling his move to Villa back,

01:23what was it, nearly three years ago, but he seems to turn into the best player in the world,

01:27so yeah, it just felt wrong, and the game was similar to that at Sellers Park,

01:33where Villa just didn't really get, you know, didn't do anything for the first half an hour,

01:37and then concede, and then get into a, you know, kind of a bit of a, you know, a frenetic end-to-end game

01:45with a team who, you know, who won that really, you know, they're very good on the,

01:49Palace are very good on the counter-attack, you know, Villa had their chances,

01:54Dean Henderson's pulled off, you know, a couple of really good saves, you know,

01:59Villa's day was summed up when Pau Torres blocks Leon Bailey's shot on the line,

02:04and, and yeah, and, but, you know, Palace had great chances as well, you know, 3-0,

02:12you know, look, it probably, you know, it was, if Villa got a goal back at 2-0 down,

02:16then maybe, you know, it could have turned out differently, but, you know,

02:20look, Palace would deserve winners, but for Villa, you know, it just feels like they've chucked in,

02:24you know, their worst, you know, civil worst performance of the season,

02:28I mean, they were pretty bad at Sellers Park, they were pretty bad at Tottenham when they lost 4-1,

02:33but, yeah, you know, a performance that felt like it was from January and February,

02:39well, not even January and February, you know, November, December last year,

02:43rather than the team that Villa have largely been since the turn of the year,

02:46since, you know, the January editions, one of whom was missing today,

02:51in quite the big, probably the biggest...

02:53That's it, your big line on Marcus Rashford, hamstring injury, you know,

02:58is it safe to maybe assume that he might not play Villa again?

03:00Well, I think that's a severe danger now, whether Rashford would have made a difference today,

03:05whether he would have started, look, you know, I think Olly Watkins probably wasn't a big surprise

03:09that he started up front, but, yeah, it seems like Rashford, look,

03:14you know, unable to give any assurances as to whether he'll play again this season,

03:19they're going to keep testing him, but look, hamstring injury,

03:21we've only got four weeks left, you know, it may be that he's kicked his last ball for Villa,

03:27which, you know, which is a shame, I thought, you know, the other January edition,

03:32Marco Asensio, you know, didn't really, he was selected to start today,

03:38didn't really get into the game, it seemed to bypass him,

03:41surprised he stayed on the pitch as long as he did,

03:43in fact, there were two or three players, I was surprised, stayed on as long as they did,

03:46I thought the substitutions were strange, you know, look, Unai Emery has transformed Aston Villa,

03:52you know, there's no doubt about that, but this was, you know, this was a bad day,

03:56this was a bad day for him, bad day for the players, you know, this was a massive opportunity

04:01to get to a final and to potentially, you know, win a trophy, you know,

04:05Villa haven't won a trophy since 1996, that's appalling, you know,

04:08that is the longest drought, you know, in post-war, you know, post-war history,

04:13erm, well, it's the longest, sorry, it's the longest drought without a World War being in the middle of it,

04:18erm, so, you know, look, yeah, just a really, really poor day all round,

04:23and for some, you know, Palace just seemed to have their number,

04:25Villa just kept on, seemed to keep on doing the same things against Palace,

04:29and keep on getting caught out, you know, I really thought that Emery would come up with a master plan today,

04:35and, erm, it was a bit of a nightmare.

04:38Yeah, certainly a bit of a bogey team, obviously now, you know,

04:41tough week this week, that late goal at City, and now this, you know,

04:45and a lot riding on these four games to pick them up and go again.

04:48The contrast to last Saturday, when it looked like Villa, you know, Villa beat Newcastle,

04:52you know, were being rightly, you know, considered perhaps the strongest team in the country at the moment,

04:57they've gone in the space of a week from, from Powerhouse to, you know, Powder Puff, really,

05:02erm, it's strange how that has happened, and, and the, the,

05:05the difference in mood, you know, er, from, from then to now, you know, is, is, is considerable, isn't it,

05:12you know, it felt like they were, you know, an unstoppable force, just seven days ago,

05:17and today, you know, just, just really bad, and, you know, as much as, look, you know,

05:24they've still got a chance in that, haven't they, in the league, to finish in the top five,

05:29I don't think you can rule them out, you know, if you're looking, if you're looking for a crumb of comfort,

05:33it's that they now have play every weekend, you know, that they've only got four games left,

05:39there's no real excuses now not to be, you know, there's no midweek games,

05:43there's no real excuses not, excuses not to be, erm, you know, not to be fully firing for those games,

05:50you know, you've got a season which a few weeks ago, you know, they were going for the top five,

05:55they were in, you know, potentially an FA Cup final, still in the Champions League, you know,

06:01now is, you know, potentially they could, you know, could finish, could finish in, you know,

06:06look, it would still be an achievement to qualify for Europe for a third season in a row,

06:11but I suppose that one of the things the result does today is that Palace win the FA Cup,

06:15and Villa finished seventh, it's the Conference League, rather than Europa League,

06:19so it's kind of, from where the season was, what, a week ago, two weeks, sorry, two weeks ago,

06:25now you're thinking, great what this season has been, as much fun as it has been,

06:31what are you going to end up with at the end of the season, some great memories,

06:35but, you know, not this one, there's a pretty, pretty rough day all round for them.

06:41Yeah, certainly was, certainly was, place to play for them.

06:43And fair play, you know, fair play, I don't know if you should take anything away from Crystal Palace,

06:47you know, they're a fine team, one thing I can't understand with Palace is how they were so bad

06:53for the first three months of the season, but, you know, look, similar to last season

06:57where they're finishing strong, and, you know, in Eze, they've got, you know, an absolute flat out.

07:06How you still play for Crystal Palace?

07:09Who knows?

07:10But, yeah, I mean, they were deserved winners, yeah, just a bit.

07:17A bit deflating, I mean, it's going to be interesting, you know, they're always going to have a setback.

07:21So, the Tuesday nights, how do you sponsor setbacks?

07:24This is a fairly big kind of setback, you know, look,

07:27players like John McGinn, Ollie Watkins, Tyrone Mings,

07:30who didn't even get on the pitch today, you know, they've done a lot for Villa,

07:34and, you know, they deserve, I said they deserve, but you've got to earn it, haven't you?

07:40But, you know, it'll be a shame if their career, Villa careers end without silverware,

07:45because, you know, they've played in a very good Villa team,

07:49potentially great Villa team,

07:51and, you know, it's, for them in particular, it's pretty, pretty galling.

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