Aston Villa 2-1 Liverpool
by Simon Williams
at Wembley

ASTON VILLA booked their place in an FA Cup final for the first time in 15 years following yesterday’s 2-1 victory over Liverpool.

The Reds opened the scoring after 30 minutes through Philippe Coutinho before Christian Benteke deservedly levelled the scores six minutes later.

Villa captain Fabian Delph scored the winner early in the second-half to set up a meeting with Arsenal in the final on May 30 while condemning the seven-time cup winners to a trophyless season.

The two sides last met at this stage of the competition in 1897, with Villa winning 3-0 and going on to lift the trophy after a 3-2 victory over Everton.

But it was going to be a tough task for the Villans as Liverpool hadn’t lost any of their previous nine semi-finals.

Despite Tim Sherwood’s side more than holding their own at the start, Liverpool finally broke the deadlock on the half-hour mark through Coutinho.

The skilful Brazilian danced into the penalty area and curled his shot past Shay Given and into the far corner of the net after some poor defending from Villa.

But Liverpool’s lead was to be short-lived as six minutes later the Villa equalised, Benteke side-footing the ball past Simon Mignolet for his sixth goal in his last seven games for the club.

The team from the second city started the second-half just as they had finished the first and were ahead within 10 minutes of the restart, Delph cutting inside Dejan Lovren inside the box before firing a right-footed shot past Mignolet.

It was the first time Liverpool had conceded more than once in an FA Cup semi-final for the since losing 4-3 to Palace in 1990.

Moments later Liverpool had the chance to level the scores but second-half substitute Mario Balotelli failed to get his head on a cross with just Given to beat.

Despite a number of half chances for Liverpool in the second-half, most notably from the much-criticised Balotelli, they failed to threaten a resolute Villa defence.

And it was the Claret and Blues who saw out the game and booked their place in an FA Cup final for the first time since 2000, when they lost to Chelsea in the last game at the old Wembley.