No excuses for Villa's FA Cup exit

Stiliyan Petrov has insisted there are no excuses for Villa's failed FA Cup semi-final mission after admitting - 'We only have ourselves to blame.'

But the Villa skipper has vowed Martin O'Neill's men will fight back from their 3-0 Wembley defeat at the hands of Chelsea and press on in their fading fight for fourth.

Petrov felt Villa, who had dominated for the opening hour, were much improved from their recent 7-1 defeat to the Blues and rued referee Howard Webb's failure to award a stonewall penalty for John Obi Mikel's clumsy challenge on Gabby Agbonlahor.

But the midfielder vowed the claret and blues must take responsibility for failing to find the net as their 14-year wait for major silverware goes on.

He said: "It wasn't a 3-0 game. We competed very well with them, we matched them, we frustrated them, we played exceptionally well, everyone gave their best and we are disappointed.

"There were a lot of heads down after the game, because we felt we deserved more from the game and we got nothing.

"In big games you need to get big decisions. It didn't go our way again. If that decision goes our way, it could have been a completely different game.

"But we need to blame ourselves. You have to score goals to win games and we didn't manage to do that and they scored three and went through."

There was another blow yesterday afternoon, when Manchester City thrashed Birmingham 5-1 to leave seventh-placed Villa eight points adrift of fourth.

It makes Wednesday's clash with Everton a must-win for Villa and Petrov insists they are determined to bounce back from their disappointment.

He said: "It won't be hard. We know what people expect. We showed that we can come back after a very heavy defeat against Chelsea.

"We played really well today and we are going to kick on. We've got another game on Wednesday and we are going to try and qualify for Europe.

"That is the ambition now. That will drive us on. I said before the final that we could have a great season without anything.

"We need to make sure we end up with something we can celebrate."