Kieran Richardson then tested Howard with a swerving drive, but any faint hopes of any kind of Villa revival were dashed just before the hour mark when Lukaku tucked home his ninth league goal of the season from Barkley’s first-time pass to make it 4-0.
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Without ever having to hit top gear, Roberto Martinez’s side, inspired by Ross Barkley, who scored twice, Romelu Lukaku, who also netted a double, and Gerard Deulofeu, laid waste to Villa in a manner that underlined their growing confidence, not to mention their opponents’ glaring frailties.
As their winless run in the league stretched to 12 games with a 10th defeat in that sequence, Villa barely threatened going forward and were poor defensively.
And when asked if he felt his players had let the club down, he said: “Not at all”.
Everton were in a rampant mood, as they thumped struggling Aston Villa 4-0 at Goodison Park on Saturday afternoon. We will fight to get some points.
Aston Villa manager Remi Garde insists Adama Traoré is close to being selected in the first team, but must keep working hard to impress the coaching staff, as per the club’s official website.
Indeed the heavy scoreline could have resembled a cricket score had Everton needed to show up in the second half.
The aforementioned draw against City last time out was Villa’s first point since August – the Midlands club are still rooted to the bottom of the Premier League and haven’t won in the blue half of Merseyside since 2008, when Ashley Young’s last-minute victor secured a 3-2 win. When you can’t, you are in trouble, and we were.
The reprieve was short lived as Everton scored their second in the 28th minute through that man Lukaku, whose initial shot was blocked after being fed by Deulofeu. A player like Carlos Sanchez has done quite well in this situation.
It didn’t get much better for the Villa No 1 three minutes from the break when Kone caused all sorts of problems with a final effort off Guzan’s body and Barkley pounced to ram home the third. “Nothing will change until the last day we have to play a game in May”, he said.
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Lukaku said: “I can understand why the manager said it. He has a lot of players with a lot of potential”.
