Capital One Cup draw: Aston Villa manager Paul Lambert happy with Tottenham tie
Manchester United play Liverpool in one of a number of all Premier League ties
Aston Villa boss Paul Lambert was happy with a home draw against Tottenham in the Capital One Cup third round after seeing off Rotherham 3-0.
Villa did not suffer a repeat of last season's damaging exit to lower-league opposition, when they went out to then League Two Bradford, as they made light work of League One Rotherham in the second-round clash at Villa Park.
Andreas Weimann opened the scoring in the 19th minute with a fine 20-yard effort and then Christian Benteke doubled the lead before the break when he headed home at the far post.
The third goal after the break was the stellar moment for Villa as Fabian Delph latched onto a superb scooped through ball by Benteke to slam home and put the tie to bed.
It sets up a meeting with Spurs in the next round and continues Villa's testing start to the season, having already met Arsenal, Chelsea and Liverpool.
But Lambert is just happy to be drawn at home.
"Any cup game you play you want to be at home, but we are up against a top, top side," he said.
"It will be a tough game, but that's what you have to do to win things.
"It's not like we have had a tough game for a couple of weeks is it?
"It will be great, the stadium will be full. We have a great following and we saw what it means to this club with the crowd we got last season for the semi-final."
A repeat of last season's exit to Bradford was never on the cards and Lambert hailed the quality of Villa's play.
"You have got to earn the right to win the football match but I thought we would with the team we put out," he added.
"Some of the football was excellent. The third goal - the one-touch football was brilliant.
"There is a different feeling this time to Bradford. The squad is really together and strong and we trusted them to go out there and perform and they have been excellent.
"Cup football is a difficult thing because you can play against a small team and they are a totally different animal to what you are used to playing in the league. But we handled it well."
Although Rotherham were well beaten in the end, they competed well in the first half and could have opened the scoring, but Alex Revell missed two good opportunities.
And boss Steve Evans felt his side had to score first if they were going to cause a shock.
"To create cup upsets you have to go in front, it's Roy of Rovers to think you can come from 2-0 down," he said.
"We had to go in front and put pressure on Villa so it was very hard when we went behind.
"For 25 minutes we were by far the better side, we had two or three good chances, dominated possession, but we made a mistake and they had the quality to hurt us."
Capital One Cup third round draw...
Manchester United v Liverpool
Sunderland v Peterborough
West Ham United v Cardiff City
Manchester City v Wigan Athletic
Burnley v Nottingham Forest
Newcastle United v Leeds United
Southampton v Bristol City
West Bromwich Albion v Arsenal
Swindon Town v Chelsea
Tranmere Rovers v Stoke City
Watford v Norwich City
Aston Villa v Tottenham Hotspur
Hull City v Huddersfield Town
Leicester City v Derby County
Birmingham City v Swansea City
Fulham v Everton
PA
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