Arsenal crushed Aston Villa 4-0 in the FA Cup final on Saturday to bag their 12th Fa Cup title. . Theo Walcott scored in the latter stages of the first half to give his team the lead. Talisman Alexis Sanchez increased the lead at the beginning of the second half and German defender Per Mertesacker consolidated the lead in the 62nd the minute. As the game reached its final stages, French forward Olivier Giroud hammered the last nail in Villa’s coffin to confirm back to back titles for the Gunners.
Arsene Wenger opted for Theo Walcott as the front striker instead of Olivier Giroud in the starting lineup. Walcott who had scored a fantastic hat-trick in the last match of the Premier League honoured his coach’s faith by scoring the opening goal in the 40th minute. Arsenal went into the lemon break with a goal’s lead.
Alexis Sanchez doubled the lead in the 50th minute with a fantastic long range shot. The Chilean single-handedly dribbled two defenders and took a shot at the goal which went inside the goal through the top corner. Within 12 minutes, German center back Per Mertesacker’s header from a corner confirmed Arsenal’s victory.
Olivier Giroud, who came on as a substitute in the second half scored the fourth goal of the night and added to Aston Villa’s woes from Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain’s pass.
Post match, Gunners boss Arsene Wenger who is now joint most successful manager in the history of FA Cup sounded excited and thrilled about his team’s triumph.
He said: a I am very happy, very proud and absolutely thrilled because we won the FA Cup but the performance was there as well.
a The quality of the performance was outstanding today and it was a good advert for the FA Cup because we played in a very convincing way. I cannot fault one player – everyone was absolutely outstanding.
a We started strong, stayed strong and finished strong. That is what you ideally want, but you do not always get it, but today we got it.
a I think it shows as well that this team has moved forward since the beginning of last season. We are now a much more mature team, who knows its way and plays as well fantastic football.a