Aston Villa have played Chelsea in the FA Cup on eight occasions and have an impressive win to games ratio. They have won five and lost just twice. This afternoon after the Grand National they take on the Blues but after the recent 7-1 drubbing you can get 6.5 for Martin O'Neills boys to beat Chelsea in ninety minutes. There is no doubt that the defeat cause a lot of soul searching in the Villa camp.
O'Neill told the Official website: ''There is no question that for a few days we were all pretty despondent after the Chelsea defeat. ''Chelsea are a fantastic side and played particularly well against us a fortnight ago. They must have derived a great deal of confidence from beating us so convincingly and, from our viewpoint, so disappointingly because we caved in during the last half hour. ''The 7-1 got to me at the time. It was a poor defeat because I've never been beaten by seven goals before and it was hard to take. ''But I've had bigger disappointments and, when I put it into perspective, it was just a rank bad day at the office. 'I thought the performance and result at Bolton last weekend showed we had got over it. It was the manner in which we toughed it out at Bolton which was the most satisfying of all.''
If you do put the defeat into perspective then Villa represent value in a one off game. They do however have two key injury doubts and all bets should be held until the teams have been announced.
James Milner didn't play against Bolton last week and Richard Dunne didn't train on Thursday. If they are both fit we can see this being a close, tight semi-final.
Villa despite reports of fading have still only lost one in twelve in the League (Chelsea) and O'Neill will employ a counter attacking strategy at Wembley today. The value bet for the puntinplay team is under 2.5 goals in the game at just over double your money.
For the correct score jockeys we fancy a zip all draw at 13 in places on the washing line this morning.
