As Arsenal retained the FA Cup in emphatic style with a totally comprehensive destruction of Tim Sherwood’s Aston Villa side with a 4-0 thumping of the midlands relegation strugglers. After the bang-in form Theo Walcott justified his starting place and cracked in a wicked volley (with his supposedly weaker foot) to put Arsenal ahead just before half-time against a pretty hapless Villa outfit who as a unit struggled to put together any moves of real substance, you sensed Walcott’s opener was a sign of things to come and so it proved.

After the half Villa offered very little in reply as in the 50th minute, man-of-the-match, Alexis Sanchex scored the goal of the game and indeed one of the best in FA Cup history with a swerving long range effort which sailed into the net naturally leaving Given with no chance. Per Mertesacker added another before substitute Olivier Giroud completed the 4-0 rout. In truth the whole Arsenal team to a man must have at least rated 8’s across the board such was the level of performance with players like Sanchez, Cazorla and Walcott all meriting 9’s. Sadly for Villa there were just never at the races and Sherwood’s “big” gamble of playing N’zogbia in place of Agbonlahor never looked like working and Arsenal were totally dominant.

You can hear a little about how Arsene Wenger felt after the game in the Sky Sports interview below. The Frenchman said Arsenal can improve and push on and challenge for the Premier League title next season after the club retained the trophy for the 2nd year in a row, winning it for the 12th time overall (now the most succcesssful FA Cup team) and Wenger himself has won it a mere 6 times.

Arsenal are now the most successful FA Cup team – pretty damn impressive no matter what you say. Listen to Arsene’s thoughts below…