Aston Villa Advances--Carling Cup Round Three: Winners and Losers

Of course, the highlight for Aston Villa fans was the Villa's comeback against Blackburn Rovers, with Emile Heskey playing the unlikely hero when grabbing the equalizer in the 59th minute, and back-to-back goals from Ashley Young sealing the win with fifteen minutes to go.

While many clubs claim not to take the League Cup seriously, plenty brought in big-name subs when they thought they were close to losing, and the majority of fans seemed awfully ticked off when their teams fell to lesser opposition. After the jump, you'll find who's smiling, and who's making excuses.

TUESDAY:

Birmingham 3-1 MK Dons: Booooooooooooooo. The Bluenoses scored three goals in four minutes to put away their League One opponents and leave St. Andrew's smiling--although the Villa can claim much more support for their tie, at least.

Brentford 1-1 Everton, 4-3 Penalties to Brentford: Poor, poor Toffees. Their cup win over Huddersfield Town remains their only win of the season. Jermaine Beckford and Phil Jagielka both missed their penalties, giving the Bees a joyous win and putting the League One side through.

Burnley 1-0 Bolton: The Clarets found revenge on Bolton by claiming a cup victory over the Wanderers. Bolton may still have Owen Coyle, but Burnley have their win at Turf Moor.

Millwall 1-2 Ipswich: The visitors defeat a fellow Championship side.

Peterborough 1-3 Swansea: Another League One side leaves the tournament.

Portsmouth 1-2 Leicester: Pompey's troubles continue as the team that saw the quarter-finals last year dropped to the Foxes, who I continue to cheer on.

Stoke 2-0 Fulham: Rule Britannia, indeed. Fulham lose out to the physical Potters as Kenwyne Jones once again makes his presence known--and Clint Dempsey does not.

Sunderland 1-2 West Ham: Well done, Irons, for finally giving yourselves something to smile about--West Ham get their first away victory since August 15, 2009 over a Sunderland side fielding both Darren Bent and Asamoah Gyan.

Wolves 4-2 Notts County: Wolves needed extra time to finally see off the League One side

Tottenham 1-4 Arsenal: What a match--1-1 at extra time before Arsenal lit up the pitch. Arsène Wenger made it clear that he wants a trophy by sending in Marouane Chamakh and Andrey Arshavin just before the end of normal time. Spurs responded by having a mental breakdown, twice fouling players in the box. Samir Nasri converted both penalties with Arshavin adding a fourth.

WEDNESDAY:

Aston Villa 3-1 Blackburn: YAY!

Chelsea 3-4 Newcastle: Chelsea made it clear that they were concentrating on the Champions League when they fielded a side full of youth, but Patrick van Aanholt's sixth-minute goal made it seem as though it didn't matter who the Blues put on the field. Alas, a combination of complacency and injuries struck Chelsea and Newcastle knocked them out of the cup.

Scunthorpe 2-5 Manchester United: Scunny opened the scoring with a goal in the 19th minute, but just couldn't hang on against last year's trophy holders.

West Brom 2-1 Manchester City: Roberto Mancini is busy telling everyone who will listen abut how he's pleased with the club's exit, saying that Citeh are focused on beating Chelsea. Yet Mancini put Milner on in an attempt to win the match, and the Baggies weren't exactly fielding their strongest XI, either. Well done Albion!

Wigan 2-1 Preston: The Latics came back to beat Preston in injury time, with Charles N'Zogbia grabbing the winner. Now carry that elation through to the weekend, Wigan, and beat Birmingham.

Liverpool 2-2 Northampton Town, 4-2 Penalties to Northampton: It's a bad time to be a fan of a Merseyside club, with both Liverpool EPL sides losing to lower-tier squads on penalties. Well done to Northampton, the only League Two side to go through.

That's sixteen sides through to the fourth round: 1 League Two, 1 League One, 4 Championship and 10 EPL sides. The draw is Saturday at 12:15 BST, but since I'm up for Chelsea I'll probably have the news out fairly quickly.