O’Neill hails Villa’s in-form strike duo

MARTIN O’NEILL hailed the strike partnership of John Carew and Gabriel Agbonlahor as Aston Villa sustained their early-season push for a Champions League spot with victory in the derby at West Brom.

Carew and Agbonlahor struck in the space of two minutes mid-way through the first half to set Villa on the way to a 2-1 success.

The duo have now scored nine goals between them this season with the power and aerial threat of Carew and the explosive pace of Agbonlahor complementing each other.

Norwegian forward Carew, in fact, could have finished with a hat-trick as he twice hit the woodwork early in the second half.

All the Baggies could manage in reply was a consolation effort from James Morrison after a blunder by Villa goalkeeper Brad Friedel.

O’Neill said: “John and Gabby are forging a terrific partnership. I thought Agbonlahor was terrific today but John is essential for us in many aspects. He gives us a little bit of presence up there and can play a bit himself.

“He has got some goals to show for it as well. Gabby was back on the score-sheet and I couldn’t be more pleased.

“When John hit the post twice early in the second half, I thought it could come back to haunt us but we got the victory. We sat in towards the end, inviting Albion on to us because our energy was down a bit, but we’ve done brilliantly to win the game.”

O’Neill was delighted with the resilience shown by his side after winning their third away game in six games.

He added: “The momentum is terrific. We played Monday night at Tottenham, the following day flew out to Bulgaria to play in the UEFA Cup on Thursday afternoon and we’ve come here and won as well.

“Three wins in five and a half days is just terrific. Going forward, We are a definite threat and we play some lovely attractive football. Today, it took us a bit of time to get into the game but, when we came into it, it was with a vengeance.”

Baggies manager Tony Mowbray was unhappy with his side’s defending as they were made to pay by Carew and Agbonlahor.

He said: “We started very well and, before they scored, most of the play was going towards their goal but it was a bit like the Everton game. We gave away two goals in a short space of time and it is all uphill after that.”

Albion were not helped when defender Abdoulaye Meite suffered a recurrence of a calf injury in the warm-up and had to be replaced by Leon Barnett.

Mowbray added: “It was disappointing that Meite got injured in the warm-up and it is easy for me to say that if he had been playing, those goals wouldn’t have happened.”

Opta facts: Twelve of West Brom’s last 18 Premier League opponents have netted two goals or more against the Baggies.

Aston Villa are the only team to have started the same 11 players in each match so far.

WEST BROM: Carson, Zuiverloon, Barnett, Olsson, Robinson, Borja Valero (Moore 56), Morrison, Koren, Greening, Brunt (Kim 20), Bednar (Miller 56).

ASTON VILLA: Friedel, L Young, Davies, Laursen, Shorey (Milner 73), Reo-Coker, Petrov (Gardner 82), Barry, A Young, Carew (Cuellar 88), Agbonlahor.

Referee: Mike Dean.