Premier League visitors Aston Villa ran out 5-0 victors at the Racecourse Ground in the Carling Cup second round tie, although the Red Dragons were still in the hunt at 1-0 until early in the second period when we changed our formation to push forward onto the attack. Former Celtic man Shaun Maloney scored twice with Luke Moore, Nigel Reo-Coker and Marlon Harewood also on the scoresheet.

Reds boss Brian Carey, not surprisingly, was disappointed with the outcome, although he took some positives out of the evening: "In the end it was a bit of a lesson for the players.

"The manner in which we conceded the goals was something that won't happen again, I will make sure of that.

"I am very disappointed for everybody who turned up tonight.

"It was potentially a good occasion tonight and we did so well for a period in the game, but I think that we just showed them too much respect in the end.

"They have got good players, but we let them do what they wanted for long periods and we paid dearly for it in the end.

"We looked at our most dangerous when we got the ball out wide to Eifion on the left but we know that he is capable of that.

"I thought that we did well for twenty five minutes or half an hour.

"It was a weak effort for the first goal, the second one was a set-piece and after that the goals that we conceded were sickening.

"We did so well for long periods and tried to get back into it but it backfired, it was a huge lesson for all of us.

"We've got a lot of young players and they will learn from tonight, we've got to get close to these people and get challenges in which at times we didn't do.

"That's why we ended up in trouble last year because we gave away the stupid goals that we did tonight, we won't be conceding goals like that again.

"The first 25 minutes or half an hour we showed what we can do, we gave them problems, we played without fear and didn't worry too much about them. There were a few good individual performances as well, which was pleasing.

"The Hereford game was always going to be our biggest priority this week and that was reflected in my team selection as well. It is easy for me to say that now but it is the truth.

"One of two of the senior players had knocks which is why they were out tonight, but that doesn't excuse what happened in the second half."