O'Neill delighted with rout

Aston Villa manager Martin O'Neill expressed his delight at Villa's ruthless form in front of goal.

Villa thumped Bolton Wanderers 5-1 at home to win their first game in four attempts, with goals coming from Ashley Young, Gabby Agbonlahor, John Carew, James Milner and Carlos Cuellar.

Johan Elmander gave Bolton a lifeline on the stroke of half time but Gary Megson's side capitulated in a dreadful second half display.

O'Neill was delighted with Villa's ability to put the ball in the back of the net, and he labelled the performance 'top class'.

"I though the performance was top class and I thought that we got started very early as well," he told Sky Sports.

"That was pleasing. The crowd got behind us early but we gave them something to be enthused about and of course the goals.

"That's what the fans want to see and we've been threatening a goal performance like that for some time.

"We've played pretty well for most of the season and naturally very, very disappointed to have lost a late goal on Wednesday night after a run of consecutive away games.

"It was up to us here today to win this and this was a very important game for us."

Opener

Villa started extremely brightly and Ashley Young gave them the lead in front of the Holte End after just five minutes - something which the manager was pleased with.

"I think that we set out in matches to go for it from the off, I don't think that you can waste time in these games," he added.

"But today we were able to sustain it I think - able to sustain pressure.

"We got the goal relatively early on that settled us down. I thought we had a couple of chances to go 2-0 up long, long before we did do, and when we scored just before half time I thought that this gives the extra cushion of a second goal and Bolton wiped it off very, very quickly.

"I always felt that while Bolton were obviously still in the game, I felt our confidence was very high and I always felt we were capable of scoring."