No goals, no real excitement, no one through to next round of FA Cup - Chelsea and Villa have to do it all again
By Paul Lagan at Stamford Bridge
Chelsea 0 v Aston Villa 0
FA Cup 4th Round
And so we will have to do it all over again, as Chelsea and Villa eked out a dour, mostly forgettable FA Cup tie at Stamford Bridge, tonight – 0-0 sounds boring, trust me, it was worse.
The best chances from either side came from defensive errors – both goalkeepers acquitted themselves well.
It was a zombie-like opening to the game with neither side seemingly interested in raising a trot let along a sweat.
Villa were content to sit back, while the home side struggled to produce any sort of goal attempt.
It was left to Youri Tielemans to wake up the crowd – albeit for a short while.
He had a great chance to open the scoring for the visitors on 12 minutes.
His free header was tipped over the crossbar by Djordje Petrovic.
From the resultant short kick, the ball bounced off Alfie Gilchrist in to the path of Douglas Luiz, who followed the ball home and in to the net for what they thought was a goal.
But VAR intervened and judged Luiz had handled the ball on the way and disallowed the goal on 14 minutes.
Noni and Cole Palmer had golden chances to score but both their efforts were saved by Emiliano Martinez.
The Argentina World Cup winner was on the spot to thwart Noni on 30 minutes. The wide man's close-range effort was kicked off the line by the stopper.
A header just before the break from Benoit Badiashile, while on target, was met by the formidable figure of Martinez, who snaffled the ball to safety.
There were no changes by either side at half-time.
A lovely technically excellent cut, left-footed volley by Palmer inched wide of the Villa right post three minutes in the the second half.
Pochettino decided to make his first change – on came Ben Chilwell, off went Gilchrist, who must be well pleased with his 65 minutes on the pitch.
Petrovic saved Chelsea on 74 minutes after a quick breakaway saw the Blues defence cut apart and Matty Cash curled the perfect left-footed, curling daisy-cutter, but the goalkeeper anticipated well, dived to his left and finger-tipped the goal-bound ball away for a corner.
The substitution clearly did not give the Blues any lift, so Pochettino brought on striker Armando Broja and winger Mykhailo Mudryk – off went Noni and ineffectual Raheem Sterling – both on 77 minutes.
The final 15 minutes of the game saw the Blues turn back into zombie-mode. A distinct lack of ambition, initiative and a default position of not wanting to make a mistake that would give Villa the chance to win the game.
Carney Chukwuemeka, the ex-Villa youngster came on for the last couple of minutes – off went Enzo.
And that was that.
Teams:
Chelsea: Petrovic, Disasi, Badiashile, Silva, Sterling, Enzo, Noni, Palmer, Gallagher, Caicedo, Gilchrist
Subs: Bergstrom, Mudryk, Chukwuemeka, Broja, Chilwell, Deivid, Williams, Castledine
Aston Villa: Martinez, Cash, Konsa, Luiz, McGinn, Tielemans, Watkins, Moreno, Lenglet, Diaby, Kamara
Subs: Olsen, Wright, Carlos, Chambers, Zaniolo, Bailey, Iroegbunam, Munroe, Kellyman
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