The cameras lingered on crestfallen Aston Villa faces.
One half of Wembley was despondent and increasingly empty. Supporters were leaving early and, such were the queues for the exits, many had their backs turned as Ismaila Sarr’s second goal — Crystal Palace’s third — went in.
Any suckers for punishment who decided to glance over their shoulder would have seen a portrait of starkly different emotions. At the far end, Palace fans were a vibrant shade of red and blue, flags waving and people bouncing. Look closer and Villa’s players appeared pale and colourless as the realisation of a spurned opportunity set in.
Few Villa fans hung around for full-time. Players tentatively approached those that did, a reflection of the passive nature of how they played, as Palace’s ‘Glad All Over’ anthem reverberated around Wembley. The internal mood was so despondent that Villa’s social media team simply posted “goal” following Palace’s third, with no further context. There was no way to dress things up.
Goal.
— Aston Villa (@AVFCOfficial) April 26, 2025
In what should have been a stage to take one step closer to rubber-stamping Unai Emery’s era with silverware, Villa allowed an FA Cup semi-final to pass them by and to be dumped out of a second domestic competition at the hands of Palace this season. Caution can often be an enemy in football and Villa’s approach was typified by circumspection.
Emery had been scorched by Oliver Glasner on previous occasions and this, a fifth game in less than 12 months, now feels like a large enough sample size to suggest that Villa have a worrying blindspot when it comes to Palace. Startlingly, the aggregate scoreline is 16-4 in the latter’s favour and though other defeats have caveats such as end of season complacency last May or an unserious nature to September’s Carabao Cup exit, Glasner’s wing-back system blunts Emery’s typically narrow shape and makes them ineffective.
“I told the guys before that how Villa play fits us perfect,” Glasner said in November.
Emery wants coldness, believing it is the best route for accentuating control. An emotionless state is the best way of defining the mindset. Taking the sting out a grand occasion — especially in the early stages — allows Villa to feel their way into games. As smoke from Palace’s pyrotechnics end imbued the pitch in the first 15 seconds, Emiliano Martinez rolled his studs on the ball and held possession for a similar length of time.
(Richard Heathcote/Getty Images)
Martinez encapsulated how Emery viewed an FA Cup semi-final, but this was at odds with the excitable hum of Wembley in the hours before. Earlier in the day, Villa’s president of football operations, Monchi, and Damian Vidagany, director of football operations, whipped up those supporters at Boxpark. “Let’s do it today and play like we do at Villa Park!” Vidagany bellowed, left hand in the air and pointing outwards.
Villa Park does seem to be a decisive factor in how Emery sets his team. Routinely at home, Villa fly at their opponents, starting fast and prepared for a breathless opening. Possibly, this is when he affords emotion in his team, knowing home comforts are powerful, given they have only lost twice there in all competitions this season — one of which was, of course, to Palace.
If Villa prepare assiduously to burst out of the blocks at home, then the inverse is often true on the road, comparable to a marathon runner who is unsure of their durability in the last few miles.
(Glyn Kirk/AFP via Getty Images)
A quest for control has, in some ways, encapsulated Villa under Emery. It has offered a foundation in an inherently chaotic sport, where entertainment tends to be derived from flashes of jeopardy. Trying to limit these moments has offered Villa, as Emery usually describes, a “consistency” in performance.
“The way we play, we don’t try and play that basketball (transitional) game,” Jacob Ramsey pointed out in January. “We try and control the game with our passes, possession and try to dictate the intensity.”
Most modern coaches desire controlled football but this can be jarring for fans when they crave urgency, particularly towards the business end of the season. Particularly in a Wembley semi-final.
Wanting control can straddle a fine line which, if players dip below, can stray into being passive. While Palace are a stylistic kryptonite, the league table is the most reliable gauge in measuring a team’s ability and Villa sit five places higher than Saturday’s opponents, with 12 more points. So the reluctance to impose themselves and instead tread caution meant Palace were content to bide their time at Wembley.
(Richard Heathcote/Getty Images)
Palace refused to press as Villa passed carefully. Right-back Matty Cash had to pick his moments to go forward, despite little width ahead of him. 65 per cent possession in the first half hour gave some credence — if giving the benefit of the doubt was with a large spoonful — to Emery’s words that his side “started dominating”.
More tellingly, though, was that the best two first-half chances came from a set piece and Lucas Digne’s hopeful cross. In other words, this was not a team that had purposeful possession.
Instead, Villa were soft. Ezri Konsa was fortunate to win a foul before Mateta scored past Martinez and shortly afterwards, his centre-back partner Pau Torres’ panicked clearance — initiated by Digne deciding to pass backward — led to a turnover and Eberechi Eze whipping the ball past Martinez. Curiously, Eze’s strike was the 22nd time Villa have conceded from an opponent’s first shot on target this season, which further suggests a passivity to how Villa start some games.
If Eze’s goal compelled Villa to break out of their conservative pen, then the problem of how to deal with Palace only got worse. Palace’s belief in their plan to sit in shape and attack by picking midfield pockets left a familiar sense of frustration within Villa’s players.
“In transition, they were more dangerous than at the beginning because we needed to push more,” Emery explained. “They had another chance in transition at the end of the first half.”
Mitchell should have doubled Palace’s lead, having profited from a turnover in midfield — a theme that magnified as the match wore on — with Cash caught upfield. For Emery, it was a nightmare passage of play; the exact situation he is permanently wary of.
(Glyn Kirk/AFP via Getty Images)
But little changed in the second half. Cash overlapped Morgan Rogers, who continued to play as a winger, despite being at his best centrally, but Palace stole in and attacked in the vacated space. Eze was bundled over in the box by Boubacar Kamara but Mateta’s penalty went wide.
Villa fans rallied, knowing that if this misguided fortune did not give their players a shot in the arm, nothing would.
Nonetheless, the slumber continued for Palace’s second. Adam Wharton carried the poise of a hand magician — do not look at his youthful face, but watch what he does with his limbs — robbing Youri Tielemans for Sarr to score. This summed up the disparity of the two sides. Palace were aggressive and decisive going forward quickly while Villa were the opposite.
Kamara and Tielemans usually symbolise Villa’s metronomic possession but one conceded a penalty and the other was directly at fault for a goal. Leon Bailey had a shot blocked, close to the goal-line, by his own team-mate Pau Torres, providing a note of schadenfreude to Villa’s afternoon.
Furiously Emery tapped his watch, protesting time-wasting yet the final throes petered out into only more gloom, culminating in Palace’s deserved third.
Emery invariably tries to keep his emotional compass balanced, but the frustration felt by those supporters leaving early was telling. This was an opportunity wasted.
(Header photo: Richard Heathcote/Getty Images)