Aston Villa’s lack of a true goal threat was highlighted in a frustrating performance against a struggling West Ham side at Villa Park today. West Ham clearly arrived knowing they had next to no chance of winning this game and will head back to London very satisfied with their point. Villa fans will be heading home wondering how their team could dominate the game without ever really threatening to break the deadlock.

Once again the other teams around us had provided an opportunity to make up ground with Tottenham and Liverpool failing to overcome lowly Hull and Stoke, and Man City being beaten comfortably by Everton. A strong win could have seen Villa retake 5th place and that’s exactly what should have happened.

Villa were really their own worst enemies after a first half performance of missed passes and errant first touches. No one in claret and blue really distinguished themselves. West Ham were there to be taken advantage of if only someone could summon up some guile.

The home side applied some real pressure during the second half and at times it seemed a goal must be imminent, but in the end it never came. John Carew did manage to knock in a rebound from Stewart Downing’s stinging drive, but was rightly judged to be offside. Gabby had a chance in injury time that you’d expect a top quality striker to do a good deal more with. In the end, he looked a victim of his own indecision.

I’ll do a statshack later, but 16 corners and 18 shots on goal tell their own story. With 3 centre backs on (and I’ve no idea why Luke Young is confined to the bench right now) it’s not unreasonable to expect a more serious threat to be delivered from all those set pieces. I’m not sure that Robert Green was ever concerned.

Ultimately, I’m not entirely sure what to make of this game. When we lost the opening game of the season at home to Wigan we were just anemic. It was a terrible performance all round and we rightly lost. The mystery was how we played so badly against a side like Wigan after such a promising pre-season. We clearly dominated a weak opponent today and without the poor final ball, lazy passes and substandard effort in front of goal we deserved to win.

I’m sure there will be a vigorous inquest into this apparent failure and I don’t want to rush to judgment. However, when it just wasn’t working out on the pitch I looked to who we had on the bench and for the first time in a while I couldn’t see an option there that I thought would really make any difference.

Speaking of the bench, Nigel Reo-Coker was conspicuous by his absence. Just saying.

Overall, right now this feels very much like 2 points dropped and an opportunity spurned that might well be crucial when we reach the finish line and look back on the season. There’s a long way to go yet and a lot more drama to unfold, but for the first time I found myself looking at the squad and wondering whether they are really equipped to battle it out with Spurs, City and Liverpool to lead the chasing pack on the heels of Arsenal, Chelsea and Man Utd.

This is possibly just a snap, knee-jerk reaction though. I don’t know, am I being harsh I wonder?