Birmingham brought to their knees by five-star Aston Villa

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Two seasons ago in this corresponding fixture, Aston Villa gave Birmingham City a gentle shove out of the Barclays Premier League.

At Villa Park on Sunday they positively hurled their fiercest rivals towards the Championship.

And then gave them a boot up the backside for good measure.

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Double top: John Carew grabbed a brace as Villa ran riot

A jubilant sea of claret and blue celebrated as the power, pace and general know-how of Martin O'Neill's side rendered this a no-contest.

Villa have rarely looked more threatening in the past decade than they did at times as Ashley Young, John Carew and Gabriel Agbonlahor ripped a thinly protected rearguard to pieces in rattling up their largest derby triumph since 1960.

The romp has left O'Neill with an even-money chance of grabbing fifth place after the club's boss came up with the idea of giving the first in that above-named trio a license to thrill anywhere in his midfield.

That, simply, was too much for Birmingham to counter as Villa came at them from all angles. It was teeth-clenchingly awful for Birmingham's fans. They are used to seeing their team lose but to do it in such a cavalier and gutless fashion was just too much for most.

The handful of visiting supporters who remained for the final blast of Mark Clattenburg's whistle turned on their dejected players.

There have been times in the not-too- distant past when there has not been much to separate these two bitter rivals. It was not stretching a point, however, to wonder whether they were actually competing in the same league, such was Villa's dominance yesterday.

Carew and Young did the damage in front of goal, with Agbonlahor delighting a capacity crowd with the fifth score.

Alex McLeish used words such as 'chasm,' and 'gulf' in his naturally subdued post-match musings. He was entirely right to do so. It was almost embarrassingly one-sided.

Long before Young set the ball rolling in the 28th minute, the writing had been on the wall in claret and blue letters 10ft tall.

Birmingham are weak defending set-pieces — where Villa thrive. Carew had already seen one header flash narrowly wide when Young gave them the lead with a goal he will recall fondly for years.

The hapless Liam Ridgewell had cleared poorly to Olof Mellberg. The Swede did little more than smash the ball into the area where Young swivelled and planted a shot into the bottom left-hand corner of Maik Taylor's net.

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Make mine a double: Ashley Young got in on the act with a brace

It was a decisive blow. Taylor came to his side's rescue by palming a Barry curler around the post before Young and Carew combined again.

Villa's supporters will note that the former, in front of watching Fabio Capello, actually hit a cross behind Taylor's goal on the hour. Before and after that, everything he did was impeccable.

His delivery from wide areas has proved a rich vein for O'Neill. It was from another free-kick that Birmingham's defenders failed to travel with their markers.

The big Norwegian needed the smallest of touches to chalk up his 11th of the season three minutes before the break.

That really ended the contest.

The only question was exactly what the scale of Birmingham's embarrassment would be.

The answer? Massive.

Carew's tally improved within eight minutes of the re- start. Young was again involved. He threaded a ball inside Ridgewell and Barry squared for the big target man to roll into the net.

Young celebrated his fourth, which arrived 18 minutes after the restart, by laughing.

And well he might have. He sold an outrageous dummy that was bought by two Birmingham defenders. Young advanced into the area and after Taylor had produced a quite brilliant stop to keep out his first effort, simply smashed home the rebound.

That was the cue for a mass exodus among the visiting support. The ones who remained at least saw their team score a goal.

James McFadden battled gamely enough on his own, with young Argentine Mauro Zarate hopelessly out of his depth. However, Mikael Forssell still knows where the goal is and when he was sent clean through, he slipped the ball past an otherwise untested Scott Carson.

There was still time for Ridgewell to head the ball across his own penalty area. It was picked up by Agbonlahor who stepped inside Rahdi Jaidi and Stephen Kelly before tucking home the fifth.

"Are you Derby in disguise?" chorused the Holte End. For Villa's fans, happy days indeed.

 

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