Aston Villa manager MartinO’Neill won the competition twice at Leicester.
Martin O’Neill: ‘’His performance suggests he was worth the wait.
’It was really fantastic. He is not really properly fit yet. That was 20 minutes against Burnley, nothing against Tottenham on Saturday night, but I was always going to start him in this match.
‘’I was really pleased with him. What pleased me most was his ability on the ball. He can manoeuvre it, he can play and he’s got a turn of pace when he’s fully wound up.
‘’Properly fit, he’ll be a proper player for us.
‘’As the Champions League seems to have grown in stature the League Cup has lost a bit of its lustre. But if you’d seen the line-up for the quarter-finals, it was very strong indeed.
‘’The competition seems to have galvanised itself again, with Chelsea and United wanting to win it. Manchester City are very strong, Arsenal are still there. It’s particularly pleasing to be in there with that group of teams.
‘’It would be nice to win a trophy. It was particularly pleasing to do that at Leicester. Of course, it re-energised the football club and gave it a new status.
‘’With Villa, who have won this on quite a few occasions, it would be nice to be contesting it.’’