THE biggest crowd at Belle Vue for 30 years witnessed Doncaster Rovers administer a thoroughly sound 3-0 thrashing to Aston Villa in the fourth round of the Carling Cup last night. At least, that was how it appeared to everyone other than David O’Leary.

Perhaps familiarity has bred a certain contempt for the Villa manager, whose miserable week was compounded after he received a £5,000 fine on Monday for criticising Graham Poll, the referee, because Villa were also bundled out of the Carling Cup by a team from a lower division last season — Burnley at Turf Moor. This elimination in South Yorkshire was far more humbling for the West Midlands club.

It is customary for football managers to plead ignorance when asked about controversial incidents during a game. “I didn’t see that,” is the tried and trusted response championed by the likes of Arséne Wenger, among many others. Thus far, it has not been fashionable for management to confess that not only did they fail to see a particular skirmish but they also had their eyes averted for an entire game — O ’Leary came close to that astonishing admission last night.

“I could not fault my players for effort,” he said after Villa were fortunate to escape with only a three-goal margin of defeat by the Coca-Cola League One team, who were performing in the Nationwide Conference two years ago, while last night’s opposition harboured aspirations of European football.

“I didn’t think there was anything in it in the first half. The penalty set us on the back foot and the second goal was going to be crucial. We needed to get that second goal, but they got it, a cruel goal, and scored a third, that took a deflection, that Thomas Sorensen (the Villa goalkeeper) had covered.”

Although a model of calmness during his post-match press briefing, O’Leary was unhappy with the first-half penalty decision against Liam Ridgewell, for handball, which allowed Doncaster to secure the lead in the twentieth minute. “I leave others to make those decisions,” O’Leary said. “We might have had something which would have made it 2-1, but I wanted to do well in this competition. There are a lot of disappointed players in our dressing-room, disappointed that some decisions have gone against them.”

O’Leary was alluding to a moment in the second half when Milan Baros took a tumble under a clumsy challenge in the 18-yard box. “Sometimes they are given, sometimes they are not,” Dave Penney, the Doncaster manager, said.

By then, though, Villa were patently second-best to a rampant Doncaster team, whose mastery over their fêted opponents bordered on embarrassing. The chants of “easy, easy” from most of a capacity 10,590 crowd did not reflect the half of it. Penney maintained that the restoration of the club’s Football League status was still the highlight of his managerial career. This may have come a close second, better than their victory over Manchester City in the previous round, and while John Ryan, the Doncaster chairman, has indicated that he wants Manchester United in the last eight, Penney is ambivalent.

“The chairman wants to play Manchester United in every round,” Penney said. “But I’m not really bothered. Do we want another big club down here? Well, we have had two already, so I don’t know if the supporters might want a big club away.”

Penney was magnanimous in victory, insisting that “we caught them on a bad night. To keep a clean sheet against a Premiership club is excellent, but I was surprised how they let us play. We stopped them playing, pressed them and turned them. It was a fantastic night for everyone concerned.”

Ryan has hinted that progress would be rewarded with a sunshine break in January from the rigours of the league. Villa may expect a salt-mine package in Siberia should this trend continue.