Aston Villa will be in tomorrow’s FA Cup 5th round draw after cruising past Brighton and Hove Albion at Villa Park today. Don’t let the scoreline fool you. As suspected, MON rang the changes to give some tired legs a much needed rest and employed a fairly unusual system:-

The introduction of Albrighton and Delfouneso paid dividends almost immediately with Albrighton feeding the forward to open the scoring inside the first 5 minutes. Unfortunately the wing wizard picked up a knock 8 minutes later and was forced to leave the game with James Milner his replacement. The youngster seemed visibly distraught at missing his opportunity to play.

Villa bossed the rest of the half, but couldn’t extend the score and Tommy Elphick managed to equalise with 4 minutes left before the break.

However, Villa started the second half just as brightly as the first and were rewarded with a rare Ashley Young headed goal just 3 minutes in. The home crowd would no doubt have been encouraged to see Curtis Davies coming off the bench with a full 40 minutes left on the clock to mark his first game back following shoulder surgery. It’s still early days for the young centre back yet, but surely MON has the deepest strength in depth in that position in the Premiership?

Fabian Delph capped a Man of the Match performance in the middle with a well struck goal just after the hour mark fed by the ever industrious James Milner. Villa were very good value at 3-1, the visitors goal really was against the run of play and could possibly just be attributed to a momentary lack of concentration at the back.

Villa backed off the pace during the last 15 minutes and allowed Brighton some time and space to play, but they looked unable to add to the scoreline. Villa showed their ability to punish anything too adventurous with Sidwell, Downing and Delfouenso all going close towards the end.

The impressive Ciaran Clark got a run out for the last few minutes, replacing Ash Young, with James Collins pushing up into midfield. I like that, reminds me a little of the 5-4-1 I was mooting recently.

Brighton caused nerves to be strained just before 90 minutes when they got one back from a close range turn and shoot effort from Nicky Forster, but Villa were able to see out the 3 added minutes to seal the victory.

Could we possibly make two cup finals? Well, anything is possible, but this next draw can not possibly be as friendly, so it’s serious business from here on out. But why not? There’s enough strength in depth and hunger to play in this squad and cup football always proves that anyone can beat anyone on their day.

The draw for the 5th round takes place at Wembley tomorrow following the Scunthorpe United vs Manchester City game which kicks off at 6pm GMT and will be broadcast live on ITV1. Aston Villa will be ball 14.