The mid-week gamble has backfired, the repercussions are obvious. Three goals conceded at set pieces, or second phase set piece, missed chances at the other end, including a sitter or two for Darren Bent and an Ashley Young penalty saved.

Bent should have opened the scoring inside the first five minutes after being sent through brilliantly by Young, but he wasn’t able to dig the ball out from under his own feet and Jaaskelainen snuffed out the chance before he could unleash any kind of shot.

Although Bolton had their chances, it was Villa that took the lead in the 15th minute after Kyle Walker’s superb burst into the box on the right resulted in a wicked cross behind Bolton’s back line to the waiting Bent who couldn’t miss.

True to form though, during the two added minutes at the end of the half, Gary Cahill simply outfought Nathan Baker to the ball and nodded home to take the sides into the break even.

No changes at the break, the game ebbed and flowed, several gilt-edged chances went begging before Marc Albrighton showed how it was done, meeting Downing’s right sided cross perfectly to side foot his volley calmly past the helpless Jaaskelainen.

And then, six minutes later, with 20 minutes left, the game changing moment. Ashley Young was brought down in the box by David Wheater and was rightly awarded a penalty. After some entirely unjustified protests from the Bolton players, Ash was finally able to take his spot kick and it was well saved by Jaaskelainen, the chance to take the game to 3-1 spurned.

Five minutes later, guess who, Gary Cahill at a corner again. His powerful header was well saved by Brad Friedel, but the rebound fell straight to Cahill again who volleyed in through a crowd. 2-2.

Houllier brought on Petrov in place of Fabian Delph and gave Gabby just seven minutes to make an impact, but with four minutes of normal time left, Bolton twisted the knife when Ivan Klasnic picked up on a loose ball from a free kick delivery and powered his effort low to the bottom corner.

It wasn’t a game we deserved to lose, although I wouldn’t claim that we dominated any particular portion, I would say that we crafted the better quality openings and should have put Bolton to the sword with plenty of time to spare.

I don’t know what’s going wrong with the defending of set pieces, but it’s simply atrocious. You can’t win games conceding two or three goals a game.

At the other end, well everyone has an off day, we’re not employing robots, but we might have a right to expect a little more from key players such as Darren Bent when given the chance. He could have grabbed himself a hat-trick today.

Our own potency at set pieces the other end is practically zero now. Time and again a poor delivery from a dead ball gave Bolton absolutely nothing to defend. Nothing. It either failed to beat the first man or sailed harmlessly over everyone’s heads.

Sub-standard defensively and wasteful offensively. Not a recipe to win many games.

That’s all I have for now. I’m getting off the internet, it’s clear that players win games, managers lose them. Not a “debate” I’m going to waste any time on.

Nine games left, but nothing for another fortnight again. The sensibility of only playing the key players for one of the two games since the last lull in the fixture calendar really looks like madness right now.