Aston Villa has come too far to make their season bubble now.
In 12 days they had two knock -out strokes in Europe and the FA Cup, but cannot feel sorry for themselves because they are in a monumental struggle for the Champions League places.
The next are Fulham, whose manager Marco Silva de Fa Cup defeat of Villa by Crystal Palace has viewed with great interest.
Palace had the perfect game plan when they stopped the Unai Emery side who played through midfield and then hit the counterattack, with Ebereechi Eze, Ismaila Sarr and their flying wing backs.
Emery likes to play with a midfield box with four and two sitters, while a wing player enters the No. 10, but Palace hindered them with a middle block and a man-to-man pressing against the midfield box that left them without room to move the ball quickly. Villa looked nervous, was too safe in possession and was missing flexibility in their structure.
Managers often turn their entire back to create a 'plus one' in midfield, but Emery keeps the tendency to keep its entire backs high and wide.
This lack of flexibility meant that Villa could not get any further than their own midfield base and when they chose to go for a long time, Palace fell to the edge of the area and got men behind the ball. Villa missed the pace of Marcus Rashford in the front, while Morgan Rogers looked at a species on the wing. He will certainly return to No. 10.
Against teams above him in the table, Silva often switches to a rear three and after watching Palace doing the perfect work on villa, it is no surprise to see him again use the same wing.
He has a pace with Alex Iwobi, Adama Traore, Ryan Sessegnon and Antonee Robinson and will have the feeling that he can duplicate that palace performance this afternoon.