Villa ease past Wrexham
Villa put five past Dragons
Last Updated: August 28, 2007 10:59pm
Moore: Scored Villa's second
Aston Villa comfortably sealed their passage into the third round of the Carling Cup with a 5-0 win over League Two side Wrexham.
Shaun Maloney curled home a shot into the bottom corner on 30 minutes at The Racecourse Ground to take the visitors in at half-time ahead.
Wrexham began the second-half brightly but quick goals from Luke Moore and Nigel Reo-Coker killed off The Dragons' chances.
Moore headed Gareth Barry's free-kick past Michael Jones in the 52nd minute before Reo-Coker added a third ten minutes later.
Maloney fired in his second from range and Marlon Harewood wrapped up the scoring with his first goal for Villa with 12 minutes remaining.
The impressive Maloney had served notice of his intentions down the left from the very first minute, when he screwed a free-kick over Jones' bar.
Steve Evans just failed get a touch onto Chris Llewellyn's deflected free-kick at the other end before Gareth Barry played in Maloney and his curling shot beat Jones.
Villa almost went further ahead in the 39th minute when Gabriel Agbonlahor crossed low from the right and Harewood was inches from connecting in front of goal.
But Brian Carey's men were still in the tie and within seconds of the restart Michael Proctor's clever-lay off sent Eifion Williams racing clear only for Stuart aylor to parry his shot.
In the 49th minute the home side came even closer to equalising, when Williams crossed for Llewellyn, whose shot on the turn was scrabbled out for a corner by the Villa keeper.
It was the home side's last chance as Villa responded by turning on the style, with Harewood clattering the base of Jones' left-hand post with a long-range effort.
Then Barry dropped a free-kick from the right flank perfectly onto the head of Moore, whose lofted effort beat Jones and sailed into the top corner.
Villa grabbed their third when Harewood sent through Reo-Coker, who capitalised on a mistake by Shaun Pejic to slide the ball past Jones.
And with the visitors now threatening to score almost at will, Agbonlahor breezed clean through and was only denied when Jones bravely dived at his feet.
Maloney grabbed his own slightly fortunate second in the 71st minute when he struck a long-range effort that caught out Jones and bounced into the net for Villa's fourth.
And there was to be no respite for the dejected home side, who conceded their fifth in the 79th minute when Harewood swept home at close range from Maloney's corner.
| Wrexham | Team Statistics | Aston Villa |
| 0 | Goals | 5 |
| 0 | 1st Half Goals | 1 |
| 2 | Shots on Target | 8 |
| 4 | Shots off Target | 10 |
| 1 | Blocked Shots | 0 |
| 4 | Corners | 7 |
| 13 | Fouls | 13 |
| 2 | Offsides | 0 |
| 1 | Yellow Cards | 0 |
| 0 | Red Cards | 0 |
| 45.1 | Possession | 54.9 |
Shaun Maloney
Marlon Harewood
Luke Moore
Nigel Reo-Coker
