Villa up to third after more away day joy

Goals from James Milner and Gabriel Agbonlahor enabled Aston Villa to sink Blackburn and climb above Chelsea into third place in the table.

The win means Villa are now unbeaten in 13 matches and Martin O’Neill’s men also set a new club record of seven consecutive away wins in the league as Sam Allardyce tasted defeat for the first time in his 10 games as Blackburn manager.

The manner of the victory in such a potentially difficult away fixture proved, once and for all, that while this season?s title may be slightly beyond O’Neill?s reach, his team are genuine contenders for a place in the Champions League.

Both sides created half-chances in a cautious opening and Villa even had the ball in the net when Emile Heskey headed in Gareth Barry?s 16th-minute free-kick only to see his effort ruled out for a push on defender Chris Samba.

But the game really burst into life after the visitors capitalised on some poor set-piece defending from Blackburn to take a 26th minute lead.

A quickly played corner from the influential Barry played to Milner caught Rovers napping and the Villa winger capitalised waltzed into the home area before unleashing an unstoppable shot through a busy six-yard box and into the far corner.

Blackburn pressed forward, and while this only gave Villa more space in which to operate on the counter-attack the hosts finally began to carve out some opportunities of their own with a series of corners in quick succession.

These put former keeper Brad Friedel under pressure, and Rovers had what appeared to be a strong penalty appeal turned down after Barry climbed over Benni McCarthy to head clear.

But the half ended with Villa back in the ascendancy and, a minute from the break, another devastating burst of pace from Agbonlahor took him beyond the Villa defence and keeper Paul Robinson only for Nelsen to perform heroics in keeping the ball out of his goal as the England striker and Heskey both attempted to walk it into the open net.

Allardyce was clearly left unimpressed by his team’s first half endeavours, especially from the Rovers midfield, and Tugay and deadline signing El-Hadji Diouf were brought on at half-time, to little immediate effect.

Milner’s 25-yard shot opened second half hostilities, although it presented Robinson with few problems in the Blackburn goal, while Agbonlahor was soon threatening again, shooting narrowly wide.

In the 65th minute, Barry?s right-wing corner was met by Agbonlahor whose powerful header looked bound for the corner of the Rovers net until Vince Grella made a strong defensive header.

The contest should have been put beyond all doubt in the 76th minute after Ashley Young broke in devastating fashion down the left and crossed into the six-yard box where Agbonlahor just failed to connect with a stooping header and Milner rolled his shot the wrong side of a gaping net.

That glaring miss might have proved costly five minutes later when Blackburn?s third substitute Roque Santa Cruz was given time just inside the Villa area and sent a low shot whistling just wide of the goal.

But it proved insignificant as Agbonlahor wrapped up the three points in the final minute of normal time, collecting an errant pass from Stephen Warnock before finding the net, with the aid of a slight deflection, from 15 yards.