Sunderland 0-4 Aston Villa: Sherwood's men run riot in the first half

Christian Benteke and Gabriel Agbonlahor grabbed a brace each in the first half to leave half the crowd exiting at half time at the Stadium Of Light.

Villa took the lead a quarter of an hour in after good work from Leandro Bacuna down the right saw him drive into the box before pulling the ball across to Benteke who had the freedom of the Sunderland box to power home right footed.

The Villains were two up just two minutes later as Agbonlahor got his first. A calamity at the back for Sunderland as John O'Shea simply let an aimless long ball go over his head which allowed the English striker to run onto it and then dink the ball over the onrushing Costel Pantilimon.

The home fans were heading for the exits on 37 minutes as Agbonlahor grabbed his second to make it three nil. Great work from Charles N'Zogbia saw him run straight through the middle of the park before feeding his teammate who ran in off the right and went past a defender before slotting the ball into the bottom corner left footed for yet another Agbonlahor goal against Sunderland.

It was to get even worse for the Black Cats though and better for the Villa fans before half time as Benteke grabbed his second to make it four nil before the interval. Bacuna was once again the provider with a run and deep cross from the right which Benteke jumped perfectly above Wes Brown to power past the keeper.

Sunderland had actually not started the game too badly with Jack Rodwell and Patrick Van Aanholt having decent efforts on goal from distance. They also had a decent penalty shout at 2-0 when Rodwell flicked the ball up and it appeared to hit Ciaran Clark's left hand but appeals were waved away.

The second half basically turned into a training game for Villa as the game just played out to it's inevitable result. The closest anyone came was Sunderland's Steven Fletcher who rolled one across goal left footed only for the ball to cannon of the foot of the post.

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