Villa Hold Nerve to defeat Spurs in Battle Royal

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Aston Villa are through to the semi final on penalties after a 0-0 draw with Tottenham at Villa Park.

Aston Villa will certainly look back at some great wins along the way with perhaps the most notable including an emphatic 5-1 win against Hull, a 4-2 win against Norwich and a comprehensive 6-2 pounding of Portsmouth. Getting to the final stages of the F.A Cup will be seen as a fantastic achievement for the English Premier League side who are rumoured to have now gone one round further than anticipated but now find themselves just one step away from glory thanks to the performances of Salomon Rondon and Raheem Sterling.

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Sterling has really helped his team in this season's F.A Cup

Aston Villa battled through to a thoroughly deserved 5-4 penalty shootout victory after dominating the game in the 90 minutes this evening at Villa Park.

In the shootout that followed it was left yet again to the left back who is on his way out of the club at the end of the season Davide Santon, who kept a cool head to smash home the winning penalty for Villa.

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Santon scores the winning penalty again

Will Hughes put in a player of the match performance during Villa 5-4 penalty victor over Tottenham Hotspur.

Hughes, who signed for Villa in the summer for £10,750,000 looked completely assured on the ball for Aston Villa and the central midfielder is one of the reasons that Villa won this match. The central midfielder's accuracy of passing was a constant threat to the opposition's defence and contributed towards this impressive display.

I am delighted to be in the semi final said manager Paul McGrath, we have now not conceded in open play for 270 minutes, which is something of a shock as we concede a lot of goals but with a new defensive regeme being introduced it is working very well.

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Will Hughes was THE star man this match against Spurs

This is Villa's third clean sheet in a row after beating Galatasary in the Europa League second knockout stage by two goals to nil and then defeated Man City in the Premier League by a goal to nil to move within seven points of Arsenal with two games in hand, making the race for forth place very interesting.

Top Four Race Hots Up

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So, we are here with just half a month left of the Premier League and with the title going to be retained by Chelsea again and West Brom and Reading looking doomed to join Leicester in going down to the Championship, we turn our attention to the 3 way scrap for 3rd, 4th and 5th place between 3 sides in Arsenal (4th), Everton (3rd) and Aston Villa (5th).

Arsenal have two games remaining but Villa, who are 6 points behind Arsenal and 8 points behind Everton have four games remaining and Everton have three remaining but one of those is against 5th place Villa. We look at the fixtures and how we think the final Champions League positions will look come the end of the season.

Everton - 3rd - 72 pts - +30 GD

Everton's season has been a remarkable improvement on last season's disappointing 8th place finish. Players like Seamus Coleman, Saul and youngster Brendan Galloway have really stepped up this season. They have to play Villa and Newcastle at Goodison Park and we think they will get 3 points out of them games and then West Brom away from home will be a difficult match but they should defeat them to move onto 79 points.

Arsenal - 4th - 70 points - +29 GD

Arsenal are the side looking over there shoulders here and with two potentionally tricky last matches, we think West Ham will get a draw but if Danny Welbeck can continue his great form this season that has seen him grab 18 goals this season, then Arsenal could win both matches and it would come down to goal difference for 4th place.

Aston Villa - 5th - 64 pts - +28 GD

Aston Villa's never give up attitude has put them in control of there own destiny. If they can rack up the goal and win all four matches, they should do enough to grab forth place. We expect them to win all four matches but could the distraction of Europa League get in there way? It will be down to Salomon Rondon, who has an astonishing 35 goals in all competitions this season to fire the Villans back into the Champions League.

Predicted Table

3rd - Everton - 77 pts - +36 GD
4th - Aston Villa - 76 pts - +35 GD
5th - Arsenal - 76 pts - +32GD

We ave put Villa to finish ahead of Arsenal but it is going be tight and anything could happen in the race for the Champions League.

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All English Europa League Final!

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Aston Villa can look forward to a trip to the Imtech Arena for the Europa League final, following a 3-1 win at Villa Park which resulted in a 5-4 aggregate win over French side Monaco this evening.

Salomon Rondon was the best player on the park this evening, which is no surprise given the way he has played this season. Rondonn's pace and skill on the ball was a constant threat to the Monaco back line and the striker thoroughly deserved his goal. The goal itself was ultimately the decider and was from close range after great play by left back Santon. Rondon's impact delighted the fans after Villa went into the game 3-2 down on aggregate.

Kevin Volland opened the scoring in the 10th minute with a great low drive that beat the Monaco keeper at the near post. Monaco hit back though shortly after through Kondigbia and they went in at the break 1-1, with Monaco favourite to go to the final.

After the break though Villa dominated and when Rondon and Santon linked up to play the ball through for Sterling to finish for 2-1, Villa fans started to believe this would be there day. Instead of defending deeper and deeper, McGrath threw on Billings and Sturridge and went 4-3-3 and it paid off as Monaco could not contend with Villa and Rondon scored to send Villa Park delirious as they made there first European final since winning the old European Cup in 1982 in Rotterdam.

Villa will play Tottenham after they defeated Dortmund 2-0 to secure a 2-1 aggregate victory.

Salomon Rondon will face off against his old club again but this will be no cakewalk as Tottenham have a striker in Mouro Icardi, who in Europe has been unstoppable.

Who will win? Bookies have made Aston Villa 5/4 favourites for it, with Tottenham 7/4 and the draw is 11/5. It is going to be a very tight match, join us for the final soon!