Tim Sherwood said he “couldn’t condone” the actions of the home supporters but “understood their emotions” following Aston Villa’s victory over West Brom in the FA Cup on Saturday.

There were ugly crowd scenes in the dying embers of the local derby that saw Villa secure a place in the FA Cup semi-final for the first time since 2010 thanks to second-half goals from Fabian Delph and Scott Sinclair.

The sending off of West Brom’s Claudio Yacob seemed to ignite an already tense atmosphere as seats that had been ripped out of the upper tier of one of the stands housing some of the visiting fans began falling onto home fans seated below.

Soon after Villa themselves were reduced to 10 men after Jack Grealish was dismissed for a second yellow card, as the atmosphere inside Villa Park continued to boil over.

Home supporters began invading the pitch with stoppage time still being played. And on the final whistle a sea of jubilant Villa fans flooded out of the stands to celebrate the victory.

But having said that he couldn’t condone the fans behaviour, Sherwood also admitted that he could understand their actions having secured back-to-back wins against their local rivals.

He said: “They’ve just beaten their local rivals twice in a week and once in the quarter-finals of the FA Cup so the emotions are running very very high. But like I said, the club won’t condone those actions.

“I’ve had a chat with the players and they want to dedicate (the win) to the fans. They’ve had some hard times here and everyone at the football club now realises we are going to need those supporters.

“This has been a very good week for us but we know their is still a lot of hard work to be done and we are going to need those fans every step of the way.”

After the game West Brom manager Tony Pulis said that he thought “Villa should look at their stewarding” following the disgraceful scenes.

“It’s a quarter-final of the FA Cup, a full house, you know it’s going to be tasty. You should have stewards but the hierarchy at Villa should recognise the need for stewards both ends of the pitch,” said the Welshman.

“It puts the players at danger and we don’t want to see that. We were seeing it in the 1970s and ’80s and we don’t want to get back to that.”