There is no way that Arsene Wenger and the Arsenal players should be taking anything for granted when the Gunners head to Wembley on May 30th for the FA cup final. Last season’s near things against Wigan in the semis and Hull City in the final, as well as the weekend’s lucky escape against Reading will have taught them that.
Having said that, if you asked anyone concerned with Arsenal whether they would have preferred to face Liverpool or Aston Villa in the final, the result would be a landslide. So we all owe a big thanks to the Birmingham club and a special mention should go to the linesman who gave Mario Baloteli offside in the final minutes of their semi-final, when the Italian was clearly on before slotting past Given.
Anything can happen in a cup final as we know and Villa are no mugs, but even if they have their injured players back and have the morale boost of avoiding relegation, Arsenal will be huge favourites to retain the trophy and become the most successful club ever in the competition.
You can imagine that the Villa players will find it hard to forget the fact that we have done the double over them this season, putting three past them at Villa Park and five at the Emirates, while they have failed to score against us once.
An added bonus for Arsenal will hopefully be the negative knock-on effect this loss will have on Liverpool in their remaining Premier League games as they attempt to get back into the top four. It was certainly a good weekend for the Gunners.