Aston Villa 5 Birmingham 1: John Carew and Ashley Young grabbed a brace apiece to keep Aston Villa on course for Europe and send humiliated local rivals Birmingham closer to Barclays Premier League relegation.

Martin O'Neill's side outgunned their woeful opponents in all departments to close the gap on fifth placed Everton to three points.

Gabriel Agbonlahor completed the Villa rout and all that third-bottom Blues could manage in reply was a consolation goal from substitute Mikael Forssell.

Villa simply overwhelmed their city rivals and dominated proceedings in all departments apart from the opening 10 minutes.

Watching England head coach Fabio Capello must have been impressed with the performance of in-demand midfielder Gareth Barry and winger Young.

Barry's contribution emphasised the need for Villa to hold on to the 27-year-old who has been linked with a move to Chelsea and Liverpool in the past fortnight.

The former Brighton trainee and a revitalised Stiliyan Petrov dominated in the centre of the park while Birmingham struggled to cope with the pace of Young.

Liam Ridgewell and Radhi Jaidi found it almost impossible to contain Villa'sman mountain Carew.

Defeat keeps Blues in the bottom three and on this performance they will find it difficult to climb clear of the danger zone.