Aston Villa 6 Blackburn Rovers 4 (Agg. 7 – 4)

They did it!! Aston Villa have booked their first cup final appearance since the FA Cup back in 2000!!!

Villa being Villa, they didn’t do it the easy way. What drama at Villa Park tonight… who would have predicted TEN goals?? Certainly not this blogger. At least the fans at VP got their money’s worth tonight.

Villa got off to the worst of starts when Blackburn scored from a 10th minute corner that Brad Guzan will want to be watching a few replays of. Blackburn doubled their lead on the night and muted the vibrant home crowd when Kalinic followed up to knock in Guzan’s parry.

Warnock got Villa back into it thumping into the roof of the net just 4 minutes later and the Villa Park faithful raised their voices once more. Christopher Samba was sent off for a desperate tackle on Gabby Agbonlahor in the box just before half time and James Milner made no mistake from the spot.

Villa looked to exploit their numerical advantage early in the second half and it soon paid off when Dunne bundled in Downing’s corner, although it was later given as an O.G.

Milner took the score to 4-2 on the night with a sweetly hit shot from the edge of the box which took a deflection past the helpless Paul Robinson.

Heskey got on the score sheet to make it 5 after being put through in acres of space just inside the box, rounding Robinson smartly and firing into an empty net. Although he did slip over as he hit the shot and could easily have missed the goal having done the hard part.

Blackburn managed to score a spectacular third goal when Martin Olsen improbably got on the end of a ball whipped into the box with an overhead bicycle kick. MON will want to go through the tapes of that one with Dunne and Collins, but in the end it was nothing more than a consolation.

Villa weren’t willing to settle for the scoreline and Paul Robinson was forced to make a handful of impressive saves from Heskey and Gabby.

Blackburn shattered nerves further when they scored a 4th on the night with 6 or 7 minutes left on the clock.

Villa saw out normal time and then Ashley Young finished Blackburn off with Villa’s 6th in injury time as the home crowd sang ‘Que Sera, Sera’.

That’s right, we are going to Wembley!!

Wow, that feels so good writing that!! There will doubtless be more to follow. I’m off to do a one man conga down the street!!

Que Sera, Sera,
Whatever will be, will be
We’re going to WEM-BER-LEY!!!
Que Sera, Sera