Aston Villa hammer Bolton 5-1

By DANIEL ROSE STATS European Football Writer=

LONDON (SE) - Aston Villa recovered from a midweek defeat at West Ham to crush a poor Bolton side 5-1 at Villa Park with three of the goals coming in a one-sided second half.

Villa were ahead in the fifth minute and never looked back as Bolton faded after a combative first half.

Bolton’s defence had a miserable afternoon with former Villa defender and England candidate Gary Cahill enduring 90 minutes to forget even if he did play a part in the Bolton goal.

Bolton were behind after five minutes when Ashley Young cashed in on a rebound after overworked goalkeeper Jussi Jaaskelainen had blocked John Carew’s header.

Villa went further in front when Carew took advantage of a Cahill error to cross for Gabriel Agbonlahor to score in the 43rd minute.

There was still time before the break for Bolton to pull a goal back and it was something of a collector’s item because it was scored by 9.5 million pounds striker Johan Elmander.

Cahill’s effort struck the post and Elmander tapped in the rebound for his first goal in 22 Premier League matches and his first since scoring against Villa last December.

At 2-1 the match might have gone either way but Villa overwhelmed their disjointed opponents to score three times without reply.

Carew was a constant problem for Cahill and in the 53rd minute he took a pass from James Milner, brushed past Zat Knight and Cahill to score.

Villa’s fourth came in the 72nd minute when Kevin Davies was adjudged to have pushed Carew to concede a penalty.

Jaaskelainen saved Milner’s penalty, Steve Sidwell put the first rebound against a post but Milner followed up to score.

Bolton were humbled again in the 75th minute when Carlos Cuellar, restored to the side after suspension, headed in Milner’s left wing cross.

Bolton manager Gary Megson admitted he had been furious at the manner of the defeat.

Megson said: “It is not often you get several players putting in disappointing performances on the same day but that is what happened here.

“Our performance overall was just not acceptable at this level. You cannot make the sort of mistakes we made in defence in the Premier League and expect to get away with them.

“Our away form has not been up to standard this season and this was another example. I don’t why this is the case but we have plenty to work on.”

Villa manager Martin O’Neill was just happy to have expunged the memory of the 2-1 defeat at West Ham so soon.

“Our performance was top class all round. We got the early goal and the crowd got behind us and that made a big difference. We gave them plenty to shout about.

“We have been threatening a goal-performance like this for some time. We have played well for most of the season but after West Ham this was a very important game for us.”