How Everton must have the sight of Gabriel Agbonlahor. The 20-year-old striker chose the Merseyside club to score against on his Villa debut 18 months ago and he was on target against them for the third time in four games, adding to John Carew’s first half opener with a second just after the hour.

Martin O’Neill would have been pleased with the response of his players after Villa’s poor performance at Manchester City a week ago. It was not in the same class as their win over Chelsea on the same ground a fortnight earlier but was still achieved with relative ease.

Everton were lethergic and appeared to be suffering a hangover from their disappointing midweek result against Metalist Kharkiv in the UEFA Cup, when Andrew Johnson missed two penalties.

David Moyes, the Everton manager, made three changes, one of which was to leave out his £11 million summer signing Ayegbeni Yakubu. But the visitors seldom posed a threat to Villa, whose only dampener on a productive afternoon was seeing Carew, who had defied a groin injury to play in recent weeks, limping out of the action early in the second period.

Ashley Young attempted the first effort on goal for Villa but his 25 yard drive set the tone for a generally mediocre first half as it flew high and wide.

Villa did, however, break the deadlock on 13 minutes through Carew’s first goal of the campaign. Wilfred Bouma’s left-wing cross was headed straight up in the air by Joseph Yobo and then Leighton Baines only succeeded in clearing the ball straight to the Norwegian, who steadied himself before firing a low shot past Stefan Wessels.

Agbonlahor had the ball in the net again four minutes later but Young’s cross was adjudged to have curled out of play before finding his England Under-21 team-mate.

Andrew Johnson made a telling break down the right flank, latching on to Phil Jagielka’s pass over the top of the Villa defence but his low centre was cut out by Scott Carson who was being watched by Ray Clemence, the England goalkeeping coach.

In first half injury-time Tony Hibbert came to Everton’s rescue when he cleared Agbonlahor’s header off the line after Wessels had failed to deal with a Young corner.

Nigel Reo-Coker presented Everton with a chance early in the second half to get back on level terms when he brought down Jagielka on the edge of the Villa penalty area. Johnson curled the free-kick around the defensive wall - but Carson was alert to the danger.

Johnson had his first clear-cut chance after 52 minutes but he mis-hit his shot just past the post after a knockdown by Victor Anichebe.

The injured Carew was replaced by Craig Gardner early in the second half, resulting in Agbonlahor being pushed up front to devastating effect.

After 62 minutes he showed great control to double Villa’s lead with his third goal in four matches against Everton. Agbonlahor brought down Carson’s long clearance over the Everton defence with his first touch and slid the ball wide of the dive of Wessels with his second.