Joe Mercer's Villa seek and receive respite from their worst ever League run in the second leg of the League Cup semi final against second division Sunderland.

Villa’s latest fixture is their ninth in twenty five days after their wildly interrupted season delivered the inevitable fixture list congestion in the final two months of the season.

As a result, the second leg of the tie comes a full three months after the first leg at Roker Park which a then in-form Villa won 3-1 during a run of just two defeats in seventeen matches, a world away from their current form of nine defeats in nine League games.

A nil-nil draw - the seventh time in twelve games that Villa had failed to score - was enough to put Villa through to a second two legged League Cup final in three seasons after they won the inaugural competition under Joe Mercer in 1960-61.