After a night when almost everything that could go wrong did go wrong for Aston Villa, manager Martin O'Neill admitted: "We were well beaten.
"We have much work to do and we know that," he added. "We played here a couple of weeks ago in the league and got off to a poor start but then played well but we didn't do that tonight.
"In the second half, I thought Chelsea were excellent and we were unable to cope with them.
"The team they put out was not a surprise to me. The League Cup is not the Premiership but it is a competition that Chelsea will want to win. I knew that from the outset - I knew they would be strong. We did not do enough throughout the evening and we deserved to get beaten."
Chelsea manager Jose Murinho did not appear for the post-match press conference but his assistant, Steve Clarke, said he had no knowledge of an incident involving Frank Lampard picking up a coin which was thought to have been thrown onto the pitch from among the Villa fans.
Neither would the Chelsea coach be drawn to comment on a plastic bottle being thrown onto the playing surface. The incident forced referee Mark Halsey to pass it on to the fourth official in the second half and Halsey is almost certain to include the incident in his report.
The bottle was thrown by Villa fans at Chelsea goalkeeper Carlo Cudicini but Clarke said: "I know nothing more than I saw the referee coming off with a bottle in his hand."
