After Being Infuriated, Friedel Still Looks Positive
Many a times in the history, we have seen or heard about teams becoming the victim of partial decision from the referees. Once again, this has happened and Aston Villa had to suffer the injustice for the second time in the FA Cup, and this time in the semi-final.
During a match with Chelsea, the Martin O’Neil’s team had to face the consequences of wrong decision by the referee.
O’Neil’s was infuriated at the referee Phil Dowd, when he did not took any action against the Nemanja Vidic, Manchester United defender. During the match, Nemenja Vidic was found pulling back Gabriel Agbonlahor within the penalty area.
The same thing was repeated on Saturday FA Cup Semi Final game against the Blues, where again Gabriel Agbonlahor was pulled back by one of the Chelsea’s defender, John Obi Mikel. Despite of being on the wrong side of the game, the referee did not take any action, and O’Neil’s team was denied from having a penalty. This time the referee was Howard Webb.
John Terry, Chelsea Captain, admitted that Aston Villa deserved a spot-kick. However, in the second half, the Blues managed to pull the victory to their side by scoring goals from Frank Lampard, Florent Malouda, and Didier Drogba.
Friedel, Aston Villa keeper, expressed his grief over the partial and unfair decision of the referee, which resulted in a loss for his side. He also spoke about the incident that happened in the Carling Cup, which was the final match of the tournament against Manchester United. He wondered why it becomes tough for the referees to take hard decision against the big teams in the big tournaments.
Along with this, he also discussed about the past performance of his team. He spoke about the last match against Chelsea, where they had given an outstanding performance. He praised the overall performance of his team in the game, but also admitted that they were quite disappointed with the end result of the match. At this moment, he is looking positive about the future matches, and seems quite hopeful about it.
