Paul Lambert: Justice was done for Villa

Poor Villa made hard work of Blackpool, bottom of the Championship, and were jeered by their own fans for the third straight home game.

Villa Park was still unhappy in the end, after Christian Benteke's crisp volley with two minutes finally broke the resistance of their visitors.

He said: "We deserved to win the game. You have 90 minutes to win a match of football. It wasn't relief. We had so much of the ball again and the team sitting in against us.

"It's testament to ourselves that teams are falling right back against us. Credit to the players, it's never easy to unlock a team.

"We had Joe Cole, Christian Benteke and Jack Grealish in there - lots of talented players to make things happen. You just have to be patient with it. And the goal was great.

"We had chances before that and never managed to take them. But credit to the team for keeping with it. Hopefully, that winning goal will kick us on.

"We had a lot of the ball. You've just got to keep knocking at the door. We never looked in trouble as such. You've just got to keep patient and build up to get the goal.

"All credit to the team for doing it. The lads are adapting brilliantly to the new style of play. You ask any of them how they feel. They are playing with the ball and having a lot of domination.

"You have to remember that the last few games, teams have sat in against us really, really deep. But the lads looked really comfortable with the ball. The last few games we've had so much of it.

"I am more at ease with looking at it. That's not to say you're not on knife's edge at times. You always have that feeling.

"But they look really good with the way they're playing and knocking it around and being patient with the ball.

"I am at ease with watching them playing. It was a brilliant goal that won it. The last few games, Christian has had big chances to score.

"But he's just come back from an injury so it could take him several games to get up to full speed. But it was a great goal."