Aston Villa made easy work of their Capital One Cup Round 2 tie with League One Rotherham last night, with Christian Benteke once again finding the net in a 3-0 victory.
A game against lower league opposition may have been a welcome proposition for Lambert’s side following a unenviable start to their Premier League season, having played Arsenal, Chelsea and Liverpool in their opening three games.
And Lambert went against Premier League clubs’ tradition in this competition by fielding a strong side in an attempt to continue Villa’s positive start to the campaign, much to the dismay of a spirited Rotherham outfit.
Rotherham’s Alex Revell spurned two chances to put the visitors in front in the first half, but Andreas Weimann opened the scoring on 19 minutes before Christian Benteke got on the end of a Gabby Agbonlahor cross to nod home his fourth goal in as many games to put the hosts in control at half-time, despite Rotherham looking the better side in the opening stages.
Villa began to turn on the style in the second half and probably should have won by more had Joe Bennett and Agbonlahor not been so wasteful in front of goal, but it was the wonderfully impressive Fabian Delph who rounded off proceedings with a tidy finish following a smart Benteke flick.
It was perhaps no more than Villa deserved and, with no Premier League game this weekend, Lambert made the right decision in fielding a strong side. Not only did it show respect to Rotherham, but it also gave his players the chance to remain match fit.
Rotherham, sixth in League One with two wins from their opening four fixtures, gave a good account of themselves and it could have been a completely different story had they taken advantage of their strong spell in the first-half. Despite that, they’ll be proud of their performance, as will The Millers’ 3,000 travelling faithful.
Such was the quality of Delph’s goal, several Villa fans took to Twitter to hail its brilliance with @craigwill85 claiming: “If our 3rd goal had been scored by any one of the top four teams, the media wouldn’t shut up about how good it was. Absolute quality.”
While @villaboy_97 was understandably impressed with the quality of all Villa’s goals: “All our goals last night were sickkkkkkkkkk…I thought I was dreaming when Delph’s went in. He’s become a class player.”
And dreaming is what @Callum_Jenkins_ was probably doing when making this slightly premature statement: “Delph is majestic. Should definitely be in the England squad.”
Dreams aside, Villa will now face Andre ‘money bags’ Villas-Boas’ Tottenham in Round 3 and will have to recreate their opening day performance against Arsenal if they’re to progress any further in this competition.
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