Reigning English Premier League champions Manchester City crashed out of the League Cup with a 4-2 defeat to Aston Villa, while Everton were packed off by Championship side Leeds United.
Chelsea got their Capital One Cup campaign off to a flying start in the third round with a 6-0 rout of Wolverhampton Wanderers as Wigan beat West Ham 4-1. There were also victories for Swansea, Sunderland, Middlesbrough, Southampton, Bradford and Swindon.
Mario Balotelli started the game and made his mark, giving his City side the lead in the 27th minute. The home side seemed to be on their way to victory, when with half an hour remaining, Gareth Barry stuck the ball into his own net. However, City went ahead yet again five minutes later, through Aleksandar Kolarov, but Villa refused to give up, equalizing with 20 minutes to go through Gabriel Agbonlahor.
The game went into extra time, after Carlos Tevez and Scott Sinclair came close to sealing the match in normal play. The added thirty minutes, though, went Villa's way - Charles N'Zogbia made it 3-2 from close-range, and Agbonlahor completed a double with a nice strike two minutes from time to give his side victory.
At Stamford Bridge, there was only one team in it as Chelsea thrashed Wolves, the first three goals coming with less than 20 minutes gone. Gary Cahill opened the scoring, before Ryan Bertrand and Juan Mata put the game to bed with a little over 70 minutes to play.
Three more goals followed in the second half - Oriol Romeu, Fernando Torres and Victor Moses, his first for the club, adding the gloss.
Aidan White and Rodolph Austin struck for Leeds in a 2-1 victory, with Sylvain Distin scoring the lone goal for Everton. Wigan eased past West Ham at Upton Park, despite going a goal down early to Modibo Maiga. A Mauro Boselli double and one goal apiece from Ivan Ramis and Jordi Gomez took Roberto Martinez's side into the next round.
Swansea flirted with disaster, before edging out Crawley 3-2, Gary Monk scoring a last-minute winner. Big summer signing Jay Rodriguez scored a brace for Southampton to help them to a 2-0 result over Sheffield Wednesday as Sunderland also went through with a similar result against MK Dons, thanks to goals from Craig Gardner and James McClean.
Other big guns Arsenal, Manchester United and Liverpool open their League Cup campaign Wednesday.
