Angel's intervention helps to lift the sense of gloom at Villa

Aston Villa 3 Crystal Palace

While the Manchester Uniteds and Arsenals continue to treat the Carling Cup as a distraction to their pursuit of major honours, there can be no doubting the importance of the competition to the likes of Aston Villa. David O'Leary's team reached the quarter-finals with a less than convincing performance at Villa Park last night, but after ending a nine-match run in which they had failed to score more than one goal in a game this result should lift their sagging season.

Although Saturday's Premiership victory over Southampton has taken some of the pressure off O'Leary and his team - not to mention the chairman, Doug Ellis - Villa went into this fourth-round tie desperate for a result to lift the gloom on this side of the second city.

There start was spirited enough, with Darius Vassell's pace regularly opening up the solid back line and Gavin McCann controlling the midfield. The finishing, however, left much to be desired until Villa took the lead after 20 minutes thanks to an outrageous stroke of luck. Juan Pablo Angel's shot from 25 yards looked unlikely to trouble Cedric Berthelin, the Palace goalkeeper, until the ball took a vicious deflection off the head of Kit Symons and looped into the far corner of the net. It was credited as an own goal to Palace's unfortunate caretaker player-manager.

Two minutes later, Villa might have increased their lead in much better style. Thomas Hitzlsperger beat Berthelin with a thunderous shot from similar range to Angel, but the ball crashed into the near post and away to safety. With Villa suddenly finding their shooting touch, it was Stefan Moore's turn to try his luck a minute later, but his rising drive flew narrowly over the bar.

Palace were on the retreat for most of the first half, but after 38 minutes the First Division side scorned a wonderful chance to equalise. Thomas Sorensen just managed to palm away Dougie Freedman's header, but only to the feet of Tommy Black. But to Palace's horror, the midfielder contrived to blaze the ball over the bar from only two yards.

Black had plenty of time to reflect on his miss as he was substituted at half-time. Wayne Routledge, his replacement, proved an instant threat down the left wing as Palace responded positively. Freedman forced Sorensen to save smartly at the near post and Michael Hughes regularly made inroads breaking from midfield.

Villa became ragged despite McCann's attempts to build the play, and it was not long before the "Ellis out'' chants grew in volume. They were silenced, however, with a goal against the run of play after 69 minutes. Angel headed down Jlloyd Samuel's cross from the left and McCann was on hand to score from six yards. Nine minutes later Angel added a third, finishing off Hitzlsperger's cross from the left.

Aston Villa (4-4-2): Sorensen; De la Cruz, Mellberg, Dublin (Ridgewell, 80), Samuel; Moore, McCann, Hitzlsperger, Barry (Whittingham, 72); Vassell (Allback, 72), Angel. Substitutes not used: Hendrie, Postma (gk).

Crystal Palace (4-4-2): Berthelin; Fleming (Riihilahti, 55), Symons, Popovic, Borrowdale; Butterfield, Derry (Watson, 77), Hughes, Black (Routledge, h-t); Shipperley, Freedman. Substitutes not used: Glanville, Myhre (gk).

Referee: M Dean (Wirral).