Martin O'Neill saw Villa secure a comfortable 4-1 UEFA Cup victory in Reykjavík and reflected: "Things couldn't have gone much better for us."

Goals from Gareth Barry, Ashley Young, Gabby Agbonlahor and Martin Laursen did the trick against Icelandic league leaders FH Hafnarfjordur.

And O'Neill told www.avfc.co.uk: "That's a very satisfactory outcome for us. I was concerned about the game beforehand, much as I was against Odense. But we're fitter now and you could see that.

"We got the early goal, Gareth Barry was an absolute delight and we played particularly well going forwards. We had a few problems defensively but overall I was really satisfied.

"Obviously we're in a very strong position now and we'll hope to see the tie through.

"Just before half-time we had a great chance as Marlon was one-on-one with the goalkeeper who produced a great save. A couple of minutes later, instead of being 4-0 in front we were 3-1 up because they scored a good goal.

"I thought they deserved that. They had one or two chances before that and we were a bit lax at times.

"In the second-half the important thing was not to concede again and maybe add to our tally. That's exactly what happened."