0-4

*Chelsea produced an emphatic display to book a place in the Carling Cup last eight at the expense of Aston Villa.*

Frank Lampard opened the scoring when he glanced home a header from Michael Ballack’s delivery, before Andriy Shevchenko nodded home the second.

Michael Essien made it 3-0 when he brilliantly finished from 12 yards and Didier Drogba tucked in the fourth converting Salomon Kalou’s pass.

Under-par Villa lost Gareth Barry and Martin Laursen to injury.
Jose Mourinho’s Chelsea were keen to make amends for their weekend slip-up against Tottenham.

And the Portuguese manager’s intentions were clear when he fielded an almost full-strength team.

He had already stated that Chelsea would be treating this competition seriously and a lively start from the side underlined that.

Villa keeper Thomas Sorensen was called into action early in the game parrying Drogba’s fierce shot away before saving again from the lively Ivorian.

Drogba, who has arguably been Mourinho’s most consistent performer this season, was unlucky not to have played team-mate Essien in after good work around the area, but saw his final ball cleared by the alert Olof Mellberg.

Villa were sturdy in defence up until 15 minutes before the break when Ballack stole the ball from Steven Davis and delivered an inviting ball for Lampard, who nodded in.

Worse news was to follow for Martin O’Neill’s men just before the break when Barry came off with an injury following a collision with Ricardo Carvalho, while Laursen was substituted before the restart having picked up a knee injury.

Patrik Berger and Liam Ridgewell came into the XI as O’Neill shuffled his team around in hope of an equaliser.

But Chelsea were in no mood to give the visitors an inch with Drogba almost pulling off a picturebook goal with a scissor-kick.

Then Shevchenko, who had a relatively quiet game, came to life.

The £30m Ukraine striker tested Sorensen with a curling shot from outside the area before not giving the Danish keeper a chance with a well-placed header to make it 2-0.

Chelsea moved up a gear as Villa moved down one.

Essien, who had a superb game, finished off a silky move to slam home the the third for the Blues before Drogba rounded things off by slotting home late in game.

The game was marred by an incident which saw a bottle thrown on to the pitch.

Referee Mike Halsey passed the item on to the fourth official in the second half and is expected to note down the event in his report.

Lampard was also seen to pick up a coin that may have also been thrown on to the playing surface.

*Aston Villa boss Martin O’Neill*

“We were well beaten. We have much work to do and we know that.

“We played here a couple of weeks ago and got off to a poor start but then played well. But we didn’t do that at Stamford Bridge.

“In the second half I thought Chelsea were really excellent and we were unable to cope with them.”