Arrrrrrrrgggggggggghhhhhhhhh!!!!
That is how I feel at this moment! Although my beloved Villa won the 2nd leg of the league cup semi final last night, overall we lost the tie. To Bradford City! Just to put that in perspective for anyone who doesn't know - Villa are an ever present Premier League team, as in never been out of the Premier League since its inception.
Bradford City FC (The Bantams) are in League 2, the fourth tier of English football! And only mid table at that!
Now, cup upsets do happen but normally its just a one of game - a real 'cup tie'. Yesterday was the 2nd leg of the fixture. 2 weeks ago, Bradford smashed Villa 3-1 at home. Now that was bad enough, but as a villa fan, you expect that when you get them back to Villa Park, a 2 nil deficit should be easy enough to turn over.
At half time yesterday, all looked okay. Villa were 1-0 up and looked to be cruising. It would be just a matter of time until the 2nd goal that was needed to take the game to extra time. In my mind, once that 2nd goal came, so would a 3rd and a 4th and there would be no extra time. Afterall, we are the mighty Aston Villa, Pride of Birmingham, Pride of the Midlands and one of only 5 English clubs to have been crowned European Champions.
But no, Bradford came out in the second half with more purpose and Villa let them back in the game. The old cliche of '1 goal is never enough' rang true. Bradford knew from the first leg of the semi final that this was a weak Villa team and they were especially susceptible to corners. To Villas credit, they conceded very few corners last night as they knew it would lead to their downfall.
Well, in the end it did. Poor marking from a corner once again and Bradford drew level at 1-1 for the match but more important 4-2 overall. The actions of the manager were then completely unexplainable.
He put on Darren Bent - fair enough. Proven goal scoring class. He then put on Andy Weisman. Fair enough - he has definitely got goals in him. But that meant 4 centre forwards on but now now width to get the crosses in and nobody able to get the balls to aforementioned centre forwards. At one point there were 4 lads standing around the D of the penalty area waiting for a long straight ball played from Villas half. Easy to defend and what every League 2 team comes up against every single week!
Absolutely woeful! Yeah, Villa scored through Weisman in the closing minutes of the game to win the match 2-1 but they lost overall.
A 2 legged game and they still lost overall.
Fair play to Bradford. After beating Wigan, Arsenal and Villa, they fully deserve their day out at Wembley. Good luck to them.
As for Villa. Well - lucky to avoid relegation now I think, unless of course Lambert manages to get some backing from Lerner and buy some quality/experience in the remaining days in January. My gut tells me no one is coming. That scares me!
