The good news? Aston Villa remain unbeaten in the Premiership this year.  The bad news? Boy, did they have to work hard to maintain that record today.  If they’re honest, Wolves fans might be willing to admit that they put in one of their best performances of the season and wonder why they can’t play like that more often, but I still think that we were our own worst enemy today.

First of all, the game was fantastically entertaining, or at least that’s what I can gather from the non-Villa fan chatter on Twitter, but that’s something that only the neutral can probably attest to.  Me?  Well the opening passages were very good and it was encouraging to see that Wolves had come to play, despite using their more defensive 4-5-1 system.  There was space, movement, slick passing, even a few little trick touches here and there.  A very good start.

John Carew opened the scoring in the 16th minute with an unmissable knock in from Ash’s driven centre, although there was more than a sniff of offside about it.  Well, OK, the big man was marginally offside and it would have been hugely annoying if that had been spotted because he really didn’t need to be and also had to step back to get on the end of the pass.  As they say, they all count.

It should be noted that in the build up there was good work from Milner directing play and feeding Ash on the left and also Emile Heskey whose run to the near post opened up the space for Carew who casually jogged in behind.

On to the not so good. Villa’s lead lasted only minutes and I think it would be fair to question what exactly Stiliyan Petrov had going on in his head today.  He had already thrown in one or two clumsy tackles when referee Clattenberg was given very little option but to show the captain a yellow card for a silly challenge on Kevin Doyle from behind that really didn’t need to be made.  Wolves scored from the resulting free kick. [Edit: I’ve been watching the game back and it would be unfair on Stan to leave this sentence intact. Perhaps it was the overall impression I was left with at the end of the game that clouded my judgment, but prior to the silly tackle, Petrov was actually having a pretty decent game.]

There was a touch of good fortunate about the goal though.  The ball was sent in from 40 yards out and our defence should be very concerned about how Ronald Zubar was able to get on the end of it completely unchallenged. Fortunately, or unfortunately as it turned out, he had an awful connection on the ball and it rebounded out sideways. However, Craddock was charging in, also unmarked, and he made no mistakes with his instinctive stab towards goal, leaving Brad Friedel no chance. But they all count, don’t they?

Villa pressed on and it seemed more likely that they would get back ahead sooner rather than later, but as the half wore on Petrov made a couple more challenges that you wouldn’t expect someone carrying a booking to make, hence why I’m intrigued about what was on his mind today.

In the 28th minute Wolves were presented with a fabulous opportunity courtesy of Villa effectively cannibalising themselves with some really weird decision making. Carlos Cuellar decided to try to beat Steven Ward down the right by knocking the ball one side and sprinting around the other, but of course the left back saw that one coming and gladly mopped it up. The ball was fed back and then a long ball played up the pitch which was dealt with, but not overly convincingly by James Collins. He, Dunne and Petrov then conspired to make a meal out of clearing their lines under pressure from David Jones.

Eventually the ball was pushed forward to Stewart Downing who turned to feed Emile Heskey who touched the ball once under pressure and his second touch took him into trouble and he lost the ball. Wolves countered and managed to pull our back line all over the place with Collins and Cuellar making a mess of things down the right. The space was exploited and an speculative cross driven into the centre where Jones was waiting unmarked only for James Milner to come in and put the ball in his own net.

Maybe a bit rash from Milner, but testament to his desire to help out and the fact that he alone was alive to the danger. He might have have good reason to shoot a glance at Petrov who, once beaten by Jones on the corner of the box, was willing to let the Wolves midfield go into the box unmarked to pick up the cross. Frankly, if Milner hadn’t have come in, Jones would have struggled to miss anyway.

Villa threw everything at Wolves in the second half. Wolves barely ventured out of the their own half. But for all the huffing and puffing, Marcus Hahnemann wasn’t really called into much action beyond plucking crosses out of the air.

Credit to Ashley Young who was tireless in his efforts to provide the missing quality. Downing, who was pretty quiet in the first half, came to life. Milner continued to boss the middle, but Petrov, possibly told to keep his nose clean, faded into obscurity.

In the end, the breakthrough came from a fairly unlikely source. MON was forced to make a change in the 72nd minute when Richard Dunne limped off with a sore Achilles and for once the gaffer surprised us by bringing young Marc Albrighton on in his place. It was difficult to pick out the new shape, but it looked like it was 3 and a half at the back with Albrighton playing a wing back role of sorts.

Five minutes later, Stewart Downing was withdrawn with Steve Sidwell coming on in his place and, ultimately, that was the change that made the difference. Also, for all of the attractive, fluid football that Villa had played today, it was a good old fashion piece of route one football that delivered the equaliser.

Brad Friedel hoofed one up the field and Carew nodded on for Heskey who was making an intelligent run towards goal. Of course, Heksey turned and looked to link up play with a midfielder in support and who should arrive but Steve Sidwell. Sidwell hit the knock back first time with his left peg and it looked to be going in at the far post when John Carew got the slightest of touches just to make sure.

The Wolves defenders and Mick McCarthy all appealed for offside, possibly hoping to get the benefit of the doubt after the first call was allowed to stand, but Carew was onside this time and the equaliser stood.

And so it finished, 2-2. Not an absolute disaster, but I think we all had good reason to expect a little more even though it was a derby game and Wolves are pretty much fighting for their Premiership survival. In fairness, we played pretty well for most of the game, although we only actually had three shots on target and therein probably lies the real reason for not getting three points today.

All credit to Wolves, they also played extremely well and the fact that they came to Villa Park with the intention of playing some decent football themselves allowed us to play our more expansive, fluid style at times. As I’ve said, an entertaining game for the neutral and not for the first time this season by a long way. We really do play great football these days and the watching Fabio Capello would surely agree.

I’ll get a Statshack up in due course (hopefully later today) and I’d I’ll try to focus the more technical analysis on what we did well, rather than on what went wrong. For me though, the missing ingredient today was very simple, it was Gabby Agbonlahor.

John Carew picked up the official Man of the Match award as the scorer of both goals, but for me the standout player was Ashley Young. He was tireless and determined from first to last whistle today and showed the rest of the team, James Milner the exception, what sort of levels of desire will be necessary to carry us on for the rest of the season.