Are you kidding me?!? We totally outplayed Stoke for 80 minutes. Well, probably up to 82 minutes when Gabby failed to flick in a great opportunity at the near post that would have made it 3-0 and game over, no question. However, with 8 minutes to play and 2-0 up at home it should still have been game over. It wasn’t. How a team like Stoke can come to Villa Park and effectively only play with any intent for the final 8 minutes or so and still come away with something is beyond belief.

When John Carew scored the game’s second I was relishing the final whistle so I could rewind and enjoy probably the most nonchalant, but brilliant volleyed goals you’re ever likely to see. I have watched it several times now, but it’s not as sweet as it should have been. In fact, it’s downright sour.

I don’t know what else to say really. This should have been exactly the result we needed to go into the final throws of the Premiership season. How do you explain throwing this game away?? There was a warning shot in the 83rd minute when a lack of communication led to Luke Young conceding a needless corner which Shawcross followed up with an unchallenged header over the bar. A minute later, a mix up between Knight and Petrov led to the Bulgarian clearing the lines only for Stoke to return the ball to Glen Whelan to fire from 30 yards out, striking the post. Stoke pressed for the next minute or so and won two more corners. Still there was no organisation from the home team.

Friedel punched the second corner clear for a throw in on the left. Beattie took the throw quickly to Wilkinson who was marshalled by both Ashley Young & Petrov at left back while Luke Young stood further infield in no man’s land. Wilkinson fed the ball back to Beattie to cross first time to Shawcross who had got between our two centre backs around the 6 yard box. With Friedel anchored to his line, there was acres of goal to aim for and he made no mistake.

With 3 minutes of regular time left to play, this should still have been a Villa win. From the restart, the ball was fed back to Carlos Cuellar at right back who did what he almost always does and lumped it up field for John Carew to head on to Gabby who was making a run for goal. Carew missed the header though and Stoke had possession again. Fortunately, they were equally wasteful and the clearance fell to Ashley Young who jigged and danced for a moment on the right before feeding a cross into the box for a waiting Carew and Gabby. Look, it’s 2-1, 3 minutes to play, Stoke have given us numerous warnings that they’re willing and able to score and we’re knocking balls into the box where both our strikers are waiting. Why on earth would you still have Gabby on the pitch at this point?!? Surely it would have been prudent to bring him off and pack another body in the midfield??

But we won the corner and you’d think perhaps a short one, keep the ball in the corner, run down the clock and frustrate the visitors. Maybe win a free kick from an over zealous attempt to get the ball back. Nope. Cuellar and Davies join Gabby and Carew in the box for a normal corner. It comes to nothing but a weak call for a penalty and Cuellar side footing over the bar.

Stoke attacked again, but the ball ended up being run out for a goal kick by Luke Young. Brad Friedel’s thump up the field should have fallen neatly on Carew’s head, but his halfhearted attempt to win the ball resulted in Stoke wrestling it away, only to lose it again with a loose pass snapped up by Petrov in the centre circle.

Petrov fed the ball out right to Cuellar, who for once didn’t look for Carew and instead fed a simple, neat pass to James Milner. So far, so good. The sensible thing at this point would have been to knock the ball back to Cuellar, but Milner had obviously spotted Gabby making a diagonal run for the touchline and he just couldn’t resist trying to feed a ball up the line. Again, this was so unnecessary. The game’s won, it’s ours, we don’t need to score a third. Milner’s pass fell out of touch before Gabby could presumably try to win a throw in by knocking the ball against the defender tracking him.

Stoke took the throw in as the 90 minutes expired and 2 added minutes was announced. They managed to work the ball up the pitch while the Villa players ran around like headless chickens. A long ball into the box was knocked down for Sidibe, despite attention from Davies (out jumped for the header – not unusual) and Cuellar (sucked into middle from right back – not unusual), but Petrov got in the way of his shot and the ball fell neatly into the path of Whelan just outside the D who half volley into the bottom corner. And that was that, two points thrown away. The stoke bench, players and fans went crazy while the Villans stared in disbelief.

As I’ve already said, we had this game in the bag for all of 80 minutes, but Stoke could easily have scored 4 in the last 10 minutes. I’m still left unable to explain exactly how this could happen. It’s easy for me to dissect every passage of play in replay and say this shouldn’t have happened and that shouldn’t have happened and this led to that which led to the goals. Hindsight is 20/20. We’ve all criticized MON’s men in the past for sitting back in the final stages of games and consequently losing points. So wouldn’t it be hypocritical now to criticize MON for not making defensive substitutions and instructing his team to see out the clock?? I don’t know, but we all know that 2 points were completely thrown away today and that will give a glimmer of hope to Arsenal who ought to be 8 points behind us right now, not 6. Chelsea and Liverpool will be feeling fortunate that we’re 3 points behind them, instead of the single point gap there should be.

Make no mistake though, we’re still very much in the driving seat for a top 4 finish. Arsenal still have FA Cup and Champions League fixtures to contend with on top of the Premiership, which includes Liverpool, Man Utd & Chelsea in their last 6 games.

Our own run in is far from easy, but we don’t have any other competitions to distract us. It’s difficult to find that reassuring though when we effectively just fell on our own sword in the UEFA Cup and then failed to win what was one of the easiest games we had left this season.

Then again, we didn’t get to 4th in Premiership by taking the easy points, did we?? We’ve dropped points we all thought we’d win and won points we didn’t expect this season. I’m going to remain positive that that pattern will continue and we’ll finish the season in the top 4. There’s still a long way to go and plenty more drama to come. Buckle up, it’s going to be a bumpy ride!!