The sprinkle of smartphone lights waved through the air across the stands of the Riverside Stadium suggested a special night in the making as the clock ticked down. Middlesbrough never really looked quite like forcing a shock win over high-flying Aston Villa but the fact that squeezing out a draw would have felt like an achievement, when it would have been just a solid Premier League result in years gone by, says a lot for the Birmingham club’s current stature.
Matty Cash’s late winner, a shot from range wickedly deflected home off the substitute Emmanuel Latte Lath, also spoke of Villa’s pomp. It had the scent of a big side finding a way to get it done, someway, somehow, when Unai Emery’s team selection had suggested a dilemma in how to approach a tricky tie – in a round that had become a bugbear for a club with such history in the competition, with this Villa’s first progression from the third round since 2016 – and increasing weekly demands.
“Teams are respecting us a lot,” said Emery. ”It’s not easy to beat teams defending like that. We played with maturity, and we are growing up with our mentality in matches like this.”
His opposite number, Michael Carrick, made three changes from the New Year’s Day defeat to Coventry, when the squad’s mounting injuries and relentless programme came to a weary head in a leaden second half. If the returnees here, led by the captain-for-the-day, Hayden Hackney, offered a longed-for light at the end of the tunnel in a season frustrated by bad breaks, this was not a side bristling with the vim and creativity of the best of the Carrick era. Though the manager said he was “so proud” of his team, he also observed that “we had more opportunities to create chances than the chances themselves”.
Boro are flat-out this week for the best of reasons, with Chelsea visiting the Riverside in the Carabao Cup semi-final first leg on Tuesday (“I won’t need to lift them for that,” Carrick said with a smile) to further stoke memories of the Premier League glory years. Making eyes at the meal and then actually having to sit down and plough through it, though, are two different things. Boro rarely felt capable of the sort of tempo that troubles gilded visitors on third-round weekend. Maybe the longer game, over two legs against Chelsea, might suit them better.
Villa’s reputation preceded them, with their high line tempting the home side, spearheaded by Morgan Rogers, to look for the early ball over the top, prompting a few early sorties from Emi Martínez. Yet the away side’s control was always greater and Jhon Durán, in for the rested Ollie Watkins, had the first chance of note with a well-hit low drive that Tom Glover did well to parry over at his near post.
Boro were cautious but still stretched by the adventure of Cash and Álex Moreno, with the latter forcing Isaiah Jones into almost an auxiliary right-back role helping out Rav van den Berg. “They defended their own box very well,” said Emery in a big compliment to Carrick, pointing to a first half that became a half-pitch exercise of attack against defence.
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Boro attempted to lift the tempo after the break but Villa immediately reminded them of their superior quality, with John McGinn’s dipping shot from just outside the area forcing the impressive Glover into action again. Ezri Konsa then headed a Leon Bailey corner against the inside of a post before an unmarked Moreno blasted a volley over. Emery’s own choices here, leaving out Watkins and Douglas Luiz, perhaps betrayed his own concerns about his team’s workload, as they finished a sensational 2023 in second place in the Premier League but looking off their sparkling best. If it made long-term sense, it also left his team without the killer instinct to make their dominance count.
The Basque coach moved to remedy that with a quadruple substitution, bringing on Douglas Luiz, Watkins, Moussa Diaby and Nicolò Zaniolo. Zaniolo cut inside and unleashed a blockbuster effort from range just wide of the far post but Cash, fortunately for Villa, had the luck the Italian didn’t. “We never stopped being calm,” said Emery. Consigning their third-round jinx to the dustbin of history with such a lack of fuss feels like a small but significant building block in Villa’s extraordinary season.
