Luke Moore was outstanding last night as Villa won 5-0 at Rotherham.
Villa's youngsters impress
By David Barber. Thursday, 19 February 2004.
Tony McAndrew’s Aston Villa stormed into this season’s FA Youth Cup quarter-finals with a 5-0 win at Rotherham United last night. One of the favourites to lift the trophy scored four goals in a second-half blitz.
Inviting comparisons with the side that won the Youth Cup two years ago, beating Wayne Rooney’s Everton 4-2 over two legs, Villa have already put Chelsea, Wimbledon and Rotherham out of this season’s competition and now face a Sixth Round date at West Ham United.
Rotherham arguably had the better of the first half last night and were unfortunate to be a goal down. But Villa were a different team after the break and striker Luke Moore was outstanding. He has certainly made his mark on this season’s competition, scoring six times in three matches. He grabbed a hat-trick at Millmoor and Steven Foley and Gabriel Agbonlahor weighed in with the other goals.
Coach McAndrew didn’t want to talk up Villa’s chances of landing the Cup. He said: While other people might be talking about us winning the competition again, we won’t be getting carried away - there’s a long way to go yet".
In the other Fifth Round tie last night Tranmere Rovers came back from 3-1 down to ultimately beat Southampton on penalties at Prenton Park. Goals from Davies and Dagnall helped Rovers to draw level at 3-3 and force the extra half-hour. They won 6-5 on spot-kicks, with Phil Palethorpe emerging as the hero after saving the final kick from Wallis-Taylor.
Tranmere are in the quarter-finals for the second year running. It took Manchester United, the eventual Cup winners, to knock them out last time. Now Rovers have a home tie with Middlesbrough, last year’s beaten finalists.