“It was absolutely brilliant from the players,” Allardyce commented following the game. “Our first-half performance gave us a huge amount of encouragement with the way that we started the game and the way we continued to break down Aston Villa’s defence.
“The disappointing thing, which I said to the players at half-time, was ‘You can’t keep going like this without scoring, otherwise you might pay a heavy penalty. For all the good work you have done, you haven’t put the ball in the back of the net so make sure, if you do get a chance, put it in the back of the net’.
“On their first-half performance, I think Villa were there for the taking and Kevin Nolan put it away in the first few minutes of the second half with two superbly-taken goals.
“I think the arrival of the two Italians helped. If you get the right service to Marco Borriello, I think we’ve got a talented player on our hands. Carlton Cole did a really good job and was constantly fouled by Aston Villa’s centre-halves, but didn’t get a lot of protection from the referee. He caused lots of problems.
“Our wide men got in behind Villa’s defence on a consistent basis and it was just the goals that were missing, then Kevin came up with the goods. That’s four goals in two games and that’s pretty sweet for him and us all.
“We got another clean sheet, which was great for the defensive back line that coped with all the long balls Villa pumped down the middle in the second half. We defended superbly well.”