Aston Villa made it through to the next round of the Carabao Cup thanks to a 6-1 win over Crewe Alexandra.
Villa got off to a flyer and found themselves ahead after just four minutes when Ezri Konsa headed into the net from a couple of yards out following a corner.
Crewe, to their credit, didn’t let this early setback get to them and they started playing some nice football of their own, causing the Villa defence a couple of problems.
However, Dean Smith’s men doubled their lead in the 24th minute when Jota played a lovely ball over the top to Henri Lansbury, who then flicked it onto Conor Hourihane to slot into an empty net.
Villa put the game to bed with the last kick of the half when Hourihane nodded in a pinpoint cross from Anwar El Ghazi.
Crewe came out fighting in the second half and put Villa under a bit of pressure and had a couple of glorious early chances to get a consolation goal, but they fluffed their lines.
Villa added a fourth goal in the 69th minute when Keinan Davis got on the end of a cross from Jack Grealish, who had only been on the field for a minute.
They then added a fifth seven minutes later when Frederic Guilbert curled in a beautiful effort from just inside the box.
Crewe’s consolation goal came in the 84th minute when Ryan Wintle found the bottom corner of Jed Steer’s goal. However, Villa had the final say when Grealish scored the seventh goal of the evening with 87 minutes on the clock.
Here are our Villa player ratings for tonight’s match:
