Pompey's FA Cup has come to an end at the end of a busy week for the club with the departures of Venables and Fenwick. Caretaker manager Keith Waldon was in charge and would have been pleased by the way his team unsettled Villa which was summed up by the home crowd booing their side off at the end. The task now is to focus on getting out of relegation trouble and get a new manager in.
Waldon was bold enough to ditch Fenwick's plans for the game by dropping Svensson and brining in Lee Russell and Fitzroy Simpson. He also included Jimmy Carter on the bench. Villa had Dwight Yorke back from injury with Nelson making way in a reshuffled formation with three attackers.
Pompey started nervously with Villa closing down quickly although they could do little with what possession they had. Yet Pompey had a chance after 10 minutes when from a Hall cross the Villa defence left Durnin unmarked at the far post but he had to stretch to get in a header and the effort went wide. The home crowd were fairly subdued with the chimes ringing around the ground from the 3,000 travelling fans from the south.
Villa were looking the better of the two sides and were winning crucial battles in midfield. It took 21 minutes for them to take the lead when Staunton picked up possession in the middle of the park and chipped a ball forward to Collymore. He flicked it on into Milosovic's path and he got ahead of Whitbread to beat Knight and score into an empty net.
The woodwork then saved Pompey from going a further two goals down in the next seven minutes. In the 24th minute Collymore was allowed time and space to size up a shot from 20-yards which crashed against the foot of Knight's left hand post. Four minutes later Pompey's defence was missing when Villa's full-back Wright moved forward in to the Blues box. He lobed the ball over Knight and it came back off the cross-bar to Grayson who messed up the opportunity to score in an open goal. Knight then saved well from Scimeca's well struck 25-yarder.
To Pompey's credit they came back with some slick passing and endless battling. The midfield was beginning to get a grip of things and up front Hall and Durnin were working hard to find space. Hall and Simpson both worked spaces to fire long range efforts over. A scramble in Villa's box then ended with Durnin sliding a shot right across the face of the goal and inches wide.
The best chance of the half came when another good build up found Pethick in space on the right and his low, first time, cross was met by Hall. Bosnich though spread him self well and managed to keep the ball out from a couple of yards.
Villa came out looking to settle the game with more goals but Pompey's defence had shut up shop and refused to let anything get by them. Draper was forced to shoot from long range and saw his shot fly high over into the Pompey supporters behind the goal. It took 15 minutes into the half for Pompey to seriously threat Villa in the second half. Whitbread chipped a ball forward towards Russell who had advanced and his headed cross was missed by Ehiogu and Durnin sent a header against the top of the post.
Overall Villa were disappointing and Alan Little's three attackers seemed disinterested in the game. Milosovic kept losing possession and Collymore looked out of confidence. Dwight Yorke had only come back from injury which was perhaps his excuse for not performing to his full potential.
In an attempt to push Villa back some more Mathias Svensson came on for Foster who hadn't done as well as maybe he should have in midfield. Villa though were collecting everything at the back and they were hitting Pompey on the break although the strikers wanted to take an age in deciding what to do and so allowing the yellow shirted players to get back. Milosovic did work and opening in the 69th minute but stabbed in a shot in with the outside of his right foot which went well wide.
Four minutes later a lapse of concentration by Scimeca presented Svensson with a great chance to equalise. The young defender played a ball straight to the Swedish striker with only Bosnich ahead of him. However, he decided to shoot early and the shot flew high over into the Holte End.
Collymore fired over after running in to the area before Knight flung away to his right to turn a Milosovic curler around for a corner which came to nothing. Late on Milosovic missed a great chance when he was left unmarked at the far post from a Hendrie cross, but he wanted to spectacularly score and volleyed wide.
After the game Waldon as bold and said: "Unfortunately on the night I do not think we were quite good enough up front to secure the goal that would have really unhinged Aston Villa. But I think the players really gave their all. They were extremely nervous in the first 20 minutes and our passing was awful. But as we settled down we started to play a bit and we had a couple of decent chances in the first-half that if we had put away would have put a different complexion on things." On the Pompey fans who had outsung the Villa faithful all evening he said: "I think our away supporters are certainly the best in the division, possibly even better than any Premiership side."