Aston Villa 3 Blackburn Rvrs 1:INCIDENTS AND talking points there may have been, and plenty of them, but as an occasion, which the third round of the FA Cup used to be, this was a flat and depressing affair .

The much-changed line-ups, the lack of real bite in the tackle and, consequently, the almost surreal quietness of a much reduced crowd, all served to emphasise that, as far as both clubs were concerned, this was a match of secondary importance to tomorrow evening’s League Cup semi-final first leg at Ewood Park.

Nor, in fairness, did either manager pretend otherwise, for all that both insisted they very much wanted to progress in the competition. Villa’s Martin O’Neill, who made seven changes, clearly had the greater cause for satisfaction after his side effectively won the game during the first half, scoring twice against a makeshift defence featuring a 17-year-old centre-half in Phil Jones, and seeing Blackburn both miss a penalty and have El Hadji Diouf sent-off for a two-footed lunge.

When O’Neill’s opposite number, Sam Allardyce, reacted by taking off Franco di Santo, one of his strikers, and, a few minutes into the second half, David Dunn, his main creative player, it seemed to sum up the general attitude.

It was as well for the credibility of the contest and the competition that Villa, as O’Neill put it, got a bit sloppy, conceding a messy goal to Nikola Kalinic to ensure the result was in doubt until a John Carew penalty a minute from time.

Allardyce said afterwards that his substitutions were not solely about another match in another cup.

“Franco had to come off because we went down to 10 men, so we had to make a tactical substitution and go to 4-4-1, and Dunny was coming off because it’s his first game back since he got injured four weeks ago, and I didn’t want him to get fatigued and end up coming away with any strains or slight niggles,” he said. “It was about trying to get a result but making sure we had the best team available for Tuesday.”

Rovers’ chances of achieving the first of those aims with a team that featured nine changes were always likely to be slim. The lack of understanding between Jones and his captain Gael Givet made it easy for the promising Aston Villa striker Nathan Delfouneso and the defender Carlos Cuellar to head Ashley Young crosses past the exposed goalkeeper Jason Brown.

Rovers did not help themselves, first by missing a penalty – Dunn’s tame effort was saved by Brad Guzan diving to his left – and then by being reduced to 10 men when Diouf dived in on his fellow Senegalese player Habib Beye at the corner flag. With a logic unique to football managers, Allardyce chose to berate the referee Howard Webb for not being in the best position to make what was clearly a correct decision.

O’Neill, meanwhile, was looking forward to a rather different match tomorrow. “Winning won’t do us any harm, but Tuesday night will be different set of circumstances and a different game,” he said.

O’Neill believes young striker Nathan Delfouneso has a great future ahead of him. “Nathan is a very exciting prospect. If you look at this game and the way he came on, the way he started, he was fantastic. He has always had the potential from the first few glimpses we saw of him when he came on last season, especially in the Uefa Cup.

“For such a young boy to come on in an established competition like the Uefa Cup and do so well shows he has got a great future ahead of him.”