News that the draw for round three would be taking place in the early hours more than five thousand miles away showed how much the Football League themselves care about their major knockout competition. The team that Steve Bruce put out showed that his priorities lie elsewhere as well. A crowd of 18,108 (Wigan brought the 108) told much the same tale, and that included a healthy amount given away to season ticket holders although there might have been a few more there if the rest hadn’t had to pay £15.

It’s hard to see how the competition’s decline can be reversed – even for the finalists a trip to Wembley has lost its attraction, so often is the venue used, while a place in the Europa League for the winners is often more trouble than it’s worth.

But looking on the positive side, Tuesday night’s performance was, in its way, even more promising than the win over Norwich on Saturday. Scott Hogan scored another two goals, Albert Adomah got one to continue his return from injury, Birkir Bjarnason capped a decent display with Villa’s fourth.

Even better were the promising displays from Callum Hare and Jake Doyle-Hayes. Wigan also put out a weakened side but Villa’s recent record against teams from lower divisions in this competition would have given them cause for optimism, at least until the kick-off. Villa played with flair and not a little attacking intent. What danger Wigan showed was dealt with easily by a makeshift defence and one particularly good bit of news was that when the visitors did pull a goal back, we got another almost immediately.

That’s three conceded in the past two games and after each one we’ve scored straight afterwards. We’ve got into enough bad habits over time, this is a good one that we could do with picking up.