Aston Villa boss Dean Smith sets sights on winning Carabao Cup after success over Wolves

Villa are due to learn their opponents in the next round on Thursday morning having reached the last eight for the first time in eight years.

Ahmed Elmohamady, captain for the night, got the winner as Villa got the better of a much-changed Wolves.

Smith said: "For me football is about trying to win something. Why not go all out to win it? You only get three opportunities if you're not in Europe.

"You enter three competitions and the title slipped away from us on Saturday so we have the Carabao Cup and FA Cup to fight for.

"You want to finish as high as we can and this is a priority as well. We have a proud history in this cup, have won it five times, and want to continue to win it more and have days like we had in May at Wembley.

"There's still a long way to go but it was a deserved victory."

Elmohamady netted barely two minutes after Cutrone had cancelled out Anwar El Ghazi’s first-half opener.

Smith added: “I thought the performance was OK. We dominated the ball. Both teams made loads of changes.

“My only gripe was that we probably didn’t put the game to bed earlier with the possession we had.

“We allowed them an opportunity to score and they took it. There was a crazy two minutes when we scored again and they had another chance. After that, I thought we saw the game out comfortably.”

Villa are due to assess Keinan Davis after the striker was forced off with a hamstring injury.

Smith, meanwhile, is hopeful Jack Grealish will recover from a calf injury in time to feature in Saturday’s Premier League clash with Liverpool.

The skipper was in the stands to watch last night’s game and the boss said: “He has a small bleed on his calf but he has responded to treatment really well.”