THERE'S nothing new under the sun – not even the story: 'Villa's foreign goalkeeper with unusual sounding surname puts Sunderland out of the cup with astounding performance.'
Back in 1993, Villa's Australian stopper Mark Bosnich enjoyed one of the games of his career to break Sunderland hearts in a League Cup clash. Few who were there will forget it.
Sunderland absolutely dominated that game with then Villa boss Ron At
kinson joking: "We were hammered 1-4."
Last night, Villa's second-choice keeper Bradley 'Goose' Guzan replicated Bosnich's heroics, and he too deserves perfect marks.
For the young American produced stunning saves at the end of the first-half and second-half to keep his side level and also saved FOUR penalties – one in normal time and three in the penalty shoot-out.
True, Sunderland were maybe not as dominant as they had been a decade-and-a-half ago when they kept going down to sucker punches.
But they were visibly a better side than their more highly-rated Premier League opponents over the 120 minutes, and but for Guzan's skill and the home side's dubious finishing, there would only have been one winner. And that winner would have been Sunderland.
The defining moment of the game seemed to have come in the 83rd minute when Carlos Cuellar charged down an Andy Reid cross from the left with his hands.
Although the block seemed to be outside the box, referee O'Dowd had little hesitation in pointing straight to the spot.
Jones stabbed an unconvincing low shot to the Villa keeper's left and Guzan saved.
Neither side could find a breakthrough in the remainder of normal time and that brought half-an-hour of time added on, which Sunderland dominated.
Easily the best chance to seal the game in open play was the one which fell to Richardson just three minutes before the end of extra time. Malbranque pinched the ball off Stephen Warnock and freed his fellow midfielder.
Richardson only had Guzan to beat but when he could have played in Malbranque, he went for glory and the Villa keeper was in the right place at the right time yet again.
That led to the dreaded penalty shoot-out and Guzan producing fine saves from Reid, Cana and Henderson's penalty attempts.
Sunderland had been the better side but ultimately, they were goosed.
