I must say that I felt it wasn’t ‘right’ fixing Arsenal’s semifinal tie against Reading with the Chelsea vs. Manchester United clash from a neutral perspective. But in all honesty, I didn’t really care about the game at Stamford Bridge because Wembley was the place to be and as expected, the Gunners almost gave me a heart attack but Alexis Sanchez’s goals were enough to send Arsene Wenger’s men to the final. Credit to Reading for putting up a good fight as well as giving Arsenal fans some fright but it the end, it was the Gunners that would fill up Wembley on the 30th of May.
The million pound question was – who was going to join the Gunners? Aston Villa or Liverpool? The Villans have endured a tumultuous campaign this season which ultimately led to the sacking of Paul Lambert. There were two spells in the league were Aston Villa lost five games in a row and seven game in a row as well, much to the dismay of their loyal fans from Birmingham. Liverpool is another club that has had a hot and cold campaign and the fans must have felt heartbroken losing out in the semifinals of the League Cup to Chelsea. Their European campaign was rather pathetic in the Champions League and they didn’t fare any better in the Europa League either.
The game itself was a feisty encounter with Liverpool getting the early goal through Phillippe Coutinho but Aston Villa got an equalizer through their in-form striker, Christian Benteke. Fabian Delph scored the all-important goal that proved to be the match winner, which ruled out Liverpool’s chances of silverware this season. With the money the club spent this summer (£117m on eight players), it’s obvious to see that the club hasn’t been able to cope with the loss of Luis Suarez and to some extent, Daniel Sturridge. Raheem Sterling has been on the back pages for the ‘wrong reasons’ and a lot of burden have been placed on his shoulders this campaign.
However, some credit should go to Aston Villa and Tim Sherwood for what has been a great FA Cup campaign. It began with wins over Championship outfits, Blackpool and Bournemouth, before wins over fellow Premier League sides , Leicester City, West Brom and most recently, Liverpool.
There’s a lot of football to play between now and the FA Cup final, so we can focus on finishing strongly in the Premier League.
All roads lead to Wembley and it’s against Aston Villa.
Sayonara.
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