Villa draw Crystal Palace at home in the Carabao Cup following Wycombe win

Aston Villa will host Crystal Palace in Round four of the Carabao Cup following a 2-1 win over Wycombe Wanderers on Tuesday night.

The game will take place in the week commencing Monday, 28th October at Villa Park.

Palace beat London rivals QPR 2-1 in the third round and beat Norwich City 4-0 in Round 2.

Report: Wycombe Wanderers 1-2 Aston Villa

Unai Emery made 10 changes from the side that beat Wolverhampton Wanderers 3-1 at the weekend. Only Amadou Onana remained in the side with youth players like Lamare Bogarde, Sil Swinkles and Kaden Young all-handed starts.

Jhon Durán should have given the visitors the lead within the first couple of minutes when Leon Bailey played the striker through but could only put the ball wide of the post. This chance set the tone for what was a poor game in truth.

The Columbian had four of Villa’s six chances in the first half but they never really looked like they would score.

Wycombe more than matched Premier League Villa and looked a threat on the counter-attack as the power and pace of Beryly Lubala put Villa’s youthful backline to the test.

Emery described Villa’s first half against Wolves as “sh*t”. I dread what he thought of that first half but Villa did settle the nerves 10 minutes after the restart.

Young raced down the left before crossing the ball that hit Joe Lowe before falling to Emi Buendia to send a looping header into the far corner. It was the first goal from the Argentine since May 2023, following his long-term injury.

The second half then continued in the same manner as the first, without many talking points.

Wycombe did test goalkeeper Joe Gauci through Garath McCleary but the Australian pulled off a fantastic diving save to deny the experienced winger.

Villa were then awarded a dubious penalty when the referee thought Durán was brought down in the box. The striker stepped up and slotted home to make it 0-2.

The home side pulled one back late on through Richard Kone but in the end Villa did enough to see their name in the hat for the next round.

What the managers said

Emery: “It’s always difficult to play against teams when they are playing at home with their supporters. They have the opportunity as well to try to show their capacity to fight against the teams in the Premier League.

“We were sometimes struggling as they were pushing in the second half, but I think we played the match, more or less, trying to get confidence, to get minutes. I’m happy because we finished with a lot of young players… and the most important thing is that we won.”

Matt Bloomfield: “I feel pride at the performance, pride at the way we conducted ourselves as a football club; the stands were full and the boys responded on the pitch. It’s a game of fine margins and unfortunately we’ve just come up short tonight.

“I’ve just seen the penalty… it’s unfortunate for us because, had that not been given, it would have finished 1-1 and we’d have been taking penalties. It was fairly obvious to me that it wasn’t a penalty, but it’s disappointing that has decided a night when we’ve played so well and deserved to take the tie even further.”

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