Aston Villa made sure of their place in the quarter finals in the FA Cup with a 3-1 victory over Crystal Palace at Villa Park tonight with a steady, professional performance.

Gabby got the first just before half time with a header from a corner that Neil Warnock may well have something to say about again. Palace got their goal from the spot after Warnock brought down Alan Lee in the box with just less than 20 minutes to go.

In between? Glad you ask. Villa pretty much controlled large passages of play, with frequent surges forward that forced some sterling defensive efforts from the Palace back line. It had the feel that persistence would eventually tell, but Villa really needed that second goal cushion that wouldn’t come since Palace proved they were capable of drawing level.

Guzan, for once, was unable to stop a penalty going in, but apart from that and a breakdown in communication between himself and Carlos Cuellar, this was a good performance from the American. Has he made a strong enough case to start at Wembley? Only MON knows, but if forced to make a prediction; I would say that Friedel is more likely to get the nod. I’ll probably dedicate a post to that subject between now and the final, it might worth looking at.

In the end, we relied on a a couple of penalties that were unquestionable, but at the same time very professionally earned by John Carew, the second of which was right in front of referee Atkinson. Carew dispatched both efforts from the spot himself with his now customary thunderbolt of a shot. Actually, if the first one didn’t seriously damage the netting I would be surprised.

I don’t want to spend too much time analyzing the performance, the main thing was that we got through to the 6th round, or quarter final if you prefer, against Reading next month and can now focus on the the little game against Man Utd on Sunday.

I believe that Martin O’Neill is taking the team down to London tomorrow to give them the maximum time to relax and get ready for the final. I believe he had them all in a Birmingham hotel before the semi-final second leg against Blackburn for the same reason. Good call then.

Starting XI: Guzan, L Young, Cuellar, Dunne (c), Warnock, Milner, Delph (76), Downing, A Young, Carew, Agbonlahor. Subs. Friedel, Davies, Beye, Collins, Sidwell (76), Delfouneso, Heskey.

8 days, 3 games. 2 down, 1 to go. Next?