Aston Villa Football Club News

• Nickname:The Villains
• Founded:1874
• Manager:Alex McLeish

• Ground:Villa Park
• Capacity:42,584

O'Neill handed FA charge

08 Apr 2009 - 16:30:19

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The Football Association has charged Aston Villa manager Martin O'Neill with improper conduct for comments he made about referee Mike Riley following Sunday's 3-2 defeat at Manchester United.

Villa led 2-1 just before the hour mark at Old Trafford, but conceded twice in the final ten minutes to leave Manchester empty-handed.

However, O'Neill thought Riley missed a foul on Ashley Young in the build-up to Federico Macheda's dramatic last-gasp winner, saying: "The officials also got three offside decisions wrong when we were clean through.

"But the thing is we can take great heart from the performance.

"But we are really disappointed with the result because I didn't feel we deserved that.

"You are never comfortable against United but I felt we were in commanding form and looked as though we could withstand anything.

"That was very hard to take, we were splendid throughout the game. We went behind and came roaring back to take the lead.

"To come out of the game with something would have been a major boost but we haven't done. The irony of it all was I thought we were fantastic - really brilliant."