Martin O'Neill: Big 4 clubs don't capitulate the way Aston Villa did

Mar 2 2009 By Mat Kendrick

Martin O’Neill described Aston Villa’s collapse against Stoke City as “devastating” and admitted his side’s Champions League challengers would not have capitulated in the same manner.

Villa relinquished a two-goal lead against Tony Pulis’ relegation threatened team to leave Villa Park flat and compound the most miserable week of the Irishman’s two-and-a-half year claret and blue reign.

Despite goals from Stiliyan Petrov and substitute John Carew giving Villa a comfortable cushion, Stoke replied with two goals in the last two minutes through Ryan Shawcross and Glenn Whelan.

Villa were anxious to take all three points to strengthen their grip on a top four position after the manager’s decision to concentrate solely on the Premier League at the expense of the Uefa Cup.

Villa were knocked out of the European competition in Russia on Thursday night when O’Neill fielded a weakened team for the second leg against Zico’s CSKA Moscow and lost 3-1 on aggregate.

Many critics felt that O’Neill’s decision to effectively forfeit the Uefa Cup would only be vindicated by victory over the Potters en-route to confirming a Champions League place at the end of the season.

However, O’Neill suggested that experienced top four challengers like Manchester United, Chelsea, Liverpool and Arsenal would not have squandered a winning position.

“We were brilliant in the first-half and some of our movement was excellent,” said O’Neill, whose team still have a six-point advantage over fifth-placed Arsenal.

“We started the second-half sloppily and didn’t get into a rhythm for a while.

“But we got the second goal and were then in complete control.

“Stoke were left with nothing to lose and were always going to put the ball into our box and we should have been able to deal with it.

“At the moment it is hard to understand why we only drew.