Martin O’Neill took the opportunity to send a much changed Aston Villa side out to face Blackburn in the FA Cup 3rd Round at Villa Park today and it paid off with a 3-1 victory. Clearly with an eye on Tuesday’s Carling Cup Semi-Final 1st leg at Ewood Park, MON gave some periphery players a run out with James Milner and Gabby Agbonlahor not even asked to sit on the bench.

Subs: Friedel, L Young, Dunne, Sidwell, Albrighton, Petrov, Carew.

Nathan Delfouneso made the most of his rare start by opening the scoring in the 12th minute with a headed goal provided by Ashley Young. Blackburn possibly thought they would be back on terms on the half hour mark when Nigel Reo-Coker conceded a penalty, but, if so, they hadn’t taken into account that penalty king Brad Guzan was in goal. Maybe David Dunn did have that on his mind, but his effort from the spot was stopped by the American understudy.

6 minutes later Carlos Cuellar doubled Villa’s lead, again with the head and again Ashley Young the provider.

The home side would have entered the break with even more confidence thanks to El-Hadji Diouf being sent off minutes before half time.

Steve Sidwell replaced Fabian Delph for the second half and Blackburn proved that they weren’t entirely out of the match when Nikola Kalinic headed in Morten Gamst Pedersen’s corner in an aerial challenge with Guzan.

Villa pressed their numerical advantage for the remainder of the half, but it would be injury time before home nerves were settled by substitute John Carew’s penalty to make it 3-1 and an appointment in the 4th Round.

That’s 1 down and 2 to go against Blackburn this month. So far, so good. Tuesday is serious business though.