Birmingham, United Kingdom--The Football Association are set to launch an investigation into the crowd trouble which marred Aston Villa's FA Cup quarter-final victory over West Brom on Saturday.
Second-half goals from Fabian Delph and Scott Sinclair settled a feisty contest which saw both teams end the match with 10 men as Tim Sherwood's team made it two wins over their local rivals in just five days.
However, the match was overshadowed by controversial scenes in the closing stages certain to be the subject of FA scrutiny in the coming days, with football's governing body believed to have had a crowd control advisor present in the stands.
The first sign of trouble came shortly after Delph's 51st-minute goal when a smoke bomb was let off by the home fans in the lower tier of the North Stand.
Tensions became further heightened later in the half when West Brom supporters situated in the North Stand's upper tier tore out several seats, throwing them at the Villa fans situated below them.
Next, in added time, stewards were forced to gather up hordes of home fans who flooded onto the field to prematurely celebrate before the final whistle.
Then a mass pitch invasion ensued at the final whistle, with players from both sides caught up in a melee which Villa skipper Delph described as "very very scary."
Baggies boss Tony Pulis told the BBC: "It's disgraceful. We don't want to see those scenes.
"They've beaten us and for that to happen, that's just mindless idiots.
"If you're Villa, you need to look at the stewards as they came over to our fans and there was nobody there."
Speaking at his press conference afterwards he continued: "I actually think Villa should look at the stewarding.
"It's a quarter-final of an FA Cup, it's a full house and you know that it's going to be tasty, let's put it that way.
"The hierarchy at Villa should recognise that you need stewards at both ends of the pitch.
"To see the supporters coming on with three or four minutes to go... but they were congregating before that time.
"It puts players at danger and you don't want to see that. We were seeing that in the 1970s and 1980s, we don't want to go back to that.
"I am sure the FA will look at it without me poking my nose in too much.
"If you ask me from a football point of view, if you have a load of stewards then it will be sorted out.
Asked if any of his players had been struck, Pulis replied: "I didn't ask them afterwards.
"Everyone looked as though they had their heads on, their arms on and their legs on. Nobody said anything to me."
Villa boss Sherwood insisted he "could not condone the fans entering the field," yet conceded "I can understand their emotions."
He said: "They've just beat their local rivals twice in a week and once in the quarter-final of the FA Cup, so the emotions are running very, very high.
AFP
