Aston Villa manager loses his cool as referee ‘bottles’ two big decisions in FA Cup semi-final at Wembley
For a few weeks now people have wondered which provocation would really make Martin O’Neill erupt. The refereeing brouhaha in the Carling Cup final defeat to Manchester United was the first big fuse-lighter. Then there was that 7-1 Premier League defeat at Chelsea, some electronic junk in the blogosphere that had him stomping out of Aston Villa and a spurt of adverse supporter comment about his supposed disinclination to rotate or give kids a chance.
The Aston Villa manager has crashed through the door to spring indignant. He is the man who wouldn’t take it any more. At the club’s Bodymoor Heath training ground a week ago O’Neill abandoned his usual self-deprecation to declare himself a “breath of fresh air” to the claret and blue half of Birmingham. He said he needed “to consider [his] value a wee bit more” and pointed out that the club’s American owner would immediately recover his £80m outlay on players should he ever need to sell the young talents the manager had brought to Villa Park.
Saturday’s FA Cup semi-final against Chelsea gave O’Neill the chance not only to avenge the savaging in west London 14 days earlier but to guide his men to a second Wembley final, this time against Portsmouth or Spurs, not Manchester United. He took to the coaching zone reinvigorated by the league win at Bolton and fielded his best Villa XI. All the top bucks were present: James Milner, Ashley Young, Gabriel Agbonlahor, Stewart Downing. The campaign still radiated promise.
Two hours later he steamed into the post-match press conference in a fury. And while many Chelsea supporters will dismiss his fulmination against Howard Webb, the referee, as another study in stress and disappointment, the disturbing truth is that O’Neill was correct on both counts. An FA Cup semi-final was disfigured by the main match official neglecting to apply the laws of the game: especially to John Terry, the Chelsea captain, who escaped with a yellow card for a brutal 73rd-minute lunge on Milner that O’Neill described as “horrendous”.
When a team doctor tells a manager one of the best young players in England “is a very lucky boy” who is “lucky his career is intact” (these are O’Neill’s words) you can see the depth of English football football’s problem with violent tackling. In a season in which Arsenal’s Aaron Ramsey had his leg mangled at Stoke, and Eduardo da Silva, another victim of limb-breaking force, has appeared a shadow of his former self, O’Neill was within his rights to expect Terry’s instant dismissal. Villa were only 1-0 down when Webb allowed Chelsea to continue with 11 men for 17 minutes.
His other gripe was less straightforward. The maladroit challenge by Mikel John Obi that brought down Agbonlahor in the Chelsea penalty area on 15 minutes was preceded by a tug from the Villa striker on the Chelsea midfielder’s shirt. Did Webb apply the principle that two wrongs make a non-event? Or did he “bottle” both decisions, as O’Neill alleges, thus proving that “consequences” are in the thoughts of England’s referees when they are deciding whether to award a penalty against a club of Chelsea’s power or send-off a household name?
This suspicion festers at many smaller Premier League clubs. Many think referees are cowed by big four influence. A hassle-free life requires Webb to go easy on Terry and not whistle for penalties against the Premier League leaders 15 minutes into matches. This is the spirit of O’Neill’s accusation.
For him, of course, another Wembley defeat in contentious circumstances was the worst possible follow-up to the 7-1 loss and the wave of truth-telling around the club. It also poked the hornet’s nest of his resentment over the Carling Cup final, when Phil Dowd awarded a penalty against Nemanja Vidic for a last-man foul on Agbonlahor but allowed him to stay on the pitch.
Recalling that moment, O’Neill says: “If somebody said to me, after four minutes of the game, you will get a penalty kick, and Manchester United will be reduced to 10 men, I’ll take my chance in the game, just to win the game, just to win it, to get over the line to win it. I knew that the minute the referee didn’t do the job – for fear, whatever it was – that Manchester United could overcome a one-nil deficit.”
When Webb said no to Villa’s fervent penalty appeal against Mikel, O’Neill, in the coaching zone, went into spasm. Rage gripped him. Finally he lowered himself to his haunches to calm down.
The bigger picture, naturally, is that he has rebuilt this Villa side as much as he may be allowed to. On Saturday he could deploy a fine midfield of Milner, Downing, Young and Stilian Petrov, but the limits on Villa’s ascent are all too visible, now that Randy Lerner, the owner, has reportedly lost the urge to spend.
Ungrateful fans, mischievous bloggers, a newly cautious owner, a gruelling battle to finish fourth in the Premier League and then a referee who shapes an FA Cup semi-final by “bottling” two big decisions. Fun job, managing Villa.
Martin O’NeillAston VillaFA CupRefereesPaul Haywardguardian.co.uk
