Swain on Villa 6 Blackburn 4

Villa are back on the big stage and through to their first major Wembley final in 10 years after a 10-goal semi-final second leg both riveting and ridiculous.

Quite how the claret and blues reached the 6-4 scoreline which gave them an aggregate 7-4 passage to their third League Cup final since 1994 no-one can be entirely sure.

It was crazy, Cup tie football against a Blackburn team which contested more than half the game with 10 men and a deep sense of grievance.

But none of the issues that left Rovers' manager Sam Allardyce raging mattered to the Villa fans who engulfed the pitch at the final whistle to celebrate their club's return to English football's most famous stage.

And yes, Martin O'Neill, this fascinating manager with an uncanny knack of delivering when people doubt him most, has done it again.

In an era when the super-clubs have all but syphoned-off the major prizes for their own private disputes, he has given Villa the chance of silverware; I'm not sure how much more he can do while unscrupulous Americans and filthy rich Arabs and Russians are funding teams on mountains of debt.

It could be argued that last night's triumph comes in spite of creeping anxiety among the Villa faithful that the team is in danger of experiencing a Groundhog Day season.

Their league form is stuttering, key players such as Stiliyan Petrov - admirable against Rovers - and Emile Heskey are carrying injuries and it is clear, surely, that fatigue is now taking its toll.

But O'Neill has always been able to inspire extraordinary levels of resistance in whatever group of players he assembles and this lot are no different.

They needed it on this spectacular night. Villa started appallingly and had squandered their one-goal advantage from the first leg inside 26 minutes of the second as Blackburn struck twice through Nikola Kalinic.

The game changed, dramatically and decisively when referee Martin Atkinson allowed Gabby Agbonlahor to get away with a fairly obvious push on Blackburn skipper Ryan Nelsen to give this semi-final its own Tevez moment - Villa full-back Stephen Warnock scoring at the far post against the club he left in the summer as Ashley Young's cross snaked its way across the six yard box.

Up until that point, Villa had been bereft of ideas, slow in tempo, ponderous in possession and in serious danger of blowing this glaring and rare opportunity to get back among the prizes. But if the ref's blunder was a bonus they desperately needed, they got even more of a helping hand 10 minutes later.

Agbonlahor slipped Christophe Samba grip long enough to run free and on-side to Heskey's clip over the top.

The giant defender set off in pursuit as Agbonlahor strained to bring the ball under control while bearing down on keeper Paul Robinson but Samba fatefully tried to stop the shot with a challenge from behind - down went Agbonlahor, up went the referee's signal for a penalty and off went a Rovers player who had caused Villa just as many problems in their own area.

The home contingent could not believe their luck.

With Man of the Match James Milner depositing a peerless penalty into Robinson's right hand corner, Villa reached half-time level on the night, one up on aggregate, now facing 10 men and all without having really played at all well. It was impossible to make sense of it so nobody tried.

For their part, Blackburn must have wondered what they had done so wrong as to be back where they started after such an impressive opening but what happened next tested their patience and resolve to the limit.

Eight minutes into the second-half, Stewart Downing's right-wing corner swung into the box where Heskey's disconcerting presence at the near-post was followed by Richard Dunne's forceful challenge beyond.

Somehow, the ball ricocheted over the line and it needed a sequence of replays before the luckless Steven Nzonzi emerged as the player who had unwittingly diverted it into his own net.

Now Blackburn didn't know whether to stick or twist and while they made up their mind, Villa hit them for pontoon - twice.

With space appearing all over the front of their defence, Millner broke free to let fly with a rasping, left-foot shot which would have gone wide but for a deflection of Agbonalhor. This was not a kind night for Blackburn.

Then it was Milner again who slipped Heskey into play beyond an over-stretched defence for the England forward to dart round Robinson's dive and slide home a left foot finish while - as is his want - falling backwards. It was like Munich 2001 all over again - 5-2 and even Heskey scored indeed.

At this moment, Blackburn still had half an hour to endure to get through to the end of an experience growing in misery by the minute.

So full marks to them for going for broke, sending on an extra striker in Benni McCarthy for David Dunn, and conjuring two goals through sheer stubbornness.

The first of them, by Martin Olsson, was the best of the night with a memorable overhead scissor kick before the calamities kept coming for the defenders and Brett Emerton somehow squeezed a shot through a wall of claret and blue with six minutes remaining.

Is that everything? Not quite. With one final flourish, Ashley Young broke away to score a 'Henry goal' - the cut inside from the left flank acting as a prelude to a beautifully-weighted angled finish with the right foot as patented by the Frenchman during his Arsenal days.

Amid all this, there were concerns for Villa and their inability to fully dominate 10 men, the sudden doubts about Brad Guzan's goalkeeping - who had been culpable in Blackburn's first goal - and the sneaking suspicion that this is a team which is only truly top drawer when it is playing counter-attacking football.

O'Neill admitted afterwards that the atmosphere in his dressing room afterwards was muted and you could understand why - despite the scoreline, this was no electrifying blaze of attacking football but a triumph for more solid virtues.

To which end Milner's endurance and craft and Petrov's discipline and refusal to give in to a painful Achilles problem deserve special mention, along with Dunne's strength and composure at the back.

They will go to the final as underdogs and welcome that. If, in the meantime, their canny manager can find a way of rationing out some breathing time, I suspect they will welcome that even more.