Surely, Aston Villa have come too far to let their season fizzle out now.
They have suffered two knockout blows in Europe and the FA Cup in 12 days, but cannot feel sorry for themselves because they are in a monumental battle for the Champions League places.
Next up are Fulham, whose manager Marco Silva will have watched Villa’s FA Cup defeat by Crystal Palace with great interest.
Palace had the perfect game plan as they stopped Unai Emery’s side playing through the midfield and then hit them on the counter-attack, with Eberechi Eze, Ismaila Sarr and their flying wing backs.
Emery loves to play with a midfield box of four and two sitters, while a winger drops in alongside the No 10, but Palace ambushed them with a mid-block and a man-to-man press against the midfield box that left them with no space to move the ball quickly. Villa looked nervous, were too safe in possession and lacked flexibility in their build-up.
Managers often invert their full backs to create a ‘plus one’ in midfield, but Emery tends to keep his full backs high and wide.
Unai Emery watched his Aston Villa side struggle badly in their FA Cup semi-final loss to Crystal Palace
Villa could not get to grips with Ismaila Sarr and Eberechi Eze at Wembley
Emery must tweak his midfield, and that should see Morgan Rogers play more centrally
This lack of flexibility meant Villa could not get beyond their own midfield base and whenever they chose to go long, Palace dropped to the edge of the area and got men back behind the ball. Villa missed the pace of Marcus Rashford up front, while Morgan Rogers looked out of sorts on the wing. He will surely return to No 10.
Against teams above him in the table, Silva often switches to a back three and after watching Palace do the perfect job on Villa it will be no surprise to see him use the same wing back system.
He has pace with Alex Iwobi, Adama Traore, Ryan Sessegnon and Antonee Robinson and will feel he can duplicate that Palace performance this afternoon.
