Villanueva puts Rovers through

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Villanueva curled home a superb 59th-minute free-kick to finally break Spartans' stubborn resistance on a night when Allardyce's squad players were given a real test in Northumberland.

Indeed, had substitute Andrew Wright's 85th-minute shot been directed six inches more to his right, he and his team-mates would have been heading for Ewood Park and a replay their bravery so richly deserved.

A crowd of 3,445 at Croft Park was on tenterhooks until the final whistle as the majority dared to believe a repeat of their club's famous march to the fifth round of the competition in 1978 was a possibility.

But in the end, it was the Barclays Premier League side which booked a fourth-round trip to Sunderland - their third visit to the Stadium of Light this season - by the narrowest of margins.

The home side had not threatened the Blackburn goal at all until Rovers goalkeeper Mark Bunn, for reasons best known to himself, came from his line to confront a posse of players converging on a loose ball and was beaten to it by Aaron Mokoena.

The defender's mishit clearance arrived invitingly at the feet of Jed Dalton, but with Bunn scrambling desperately back towards his line, he missed the target from distance and the men from the top flight breathed a huge sigh of relief.

Rovers had the ball in the net 12 minutes before the break when the lively Matt Derbyshire finished acrobatically, via a deflection, after latching on to a looping ball, but an offside flag quickly halted his celebrations.

But Villanueva put the visitors in front with 59 minutes gone. The Chilean had been barged to the ground by Chris McCabe, and took full revenge when he curled the resulting free-kick high into the top-left corner.

Keith Andrews should have added a second, but as time ran down, Spartans threw everything they had left at the visitors, and Wright fired inches wide of the post with Bunn beaten with five minutes remaining, then an unmarked Alex Gildea headed over two minutes later as the Premier League side rode their luck.