A quick overview…

A strange game this one, perhaps the nature of the local derby crept in and affected one or two performances. In truth, there wasn’t anyone in Claret and Blue who gave a particularly good account of themselves. Although Wolves should be given some credit for shutting Villa down, the quality in the final third just wasn’t there from the visitors.

Despite not giving their best showing, since neither keeper had much to do during the course of the game, it always appeared that Villa would be able to kick it up a gear when it mattered and deliver the killer blow. Well, I felt that way, it may have just been me.

During the second half MON tried to mix up the tactics a bit with Gabby shifted to the right wing, Carew up front alone supported by a combination of Ash and Milner down the left and through the middle. There were signs that Villa probing at their hosts in this fashion might pay dividends.

MON elected to go back to a more conventional 4-4-2 when he brought Heskey on in place of Carew with 20 minutes to go. The switch paid off on 78 minutes when Villa finally stretched Wolves at the back and Heskey was able to slot a ball into Gabby around the penalty spot. Maybe it was deliberate, maybe not, but Emile’s ball was slightly behind Gabby forcing him to spin, turn and shoot which caught the Wolves defense completely flat footed.

Having taken so long to string together an attack that really challenged Wolves you would be forgiven to expect a more valiant attempt to hang on to the lead. 4 minutes later the hosts broke into the box in numbers and a back heel or two later Steve Sidwell was sliding in where he shouldn’t have gifting Ebanks-Blake the opportunity to collect his first Premiership goal from the spot.

And so it finished 1-1. Overall, a fair reflection of the game, but I think we all will have expected a more polished display from Aston Villa which leaves me feeling a little disappointed with the result. However, this was a derby game and this is often the way those games go.

I’m a little concerned that we looked a little stale today and for all of MON’s promises to utilise his squad this year, we’ve seen the same starting eleven for 3 games running. Perhaps it was just a blip, but I think we’ll see some changes for the trip to Sunderland on Tuesday for the Carling Cup fixture and hopefully whoever comes in will give the gaffer some selection headaches in the coming games.

StatShack later and maybe a trite observation or two. For now, I suppose I should agree with Juan-Pablo Angel that a point away from home in a local derby isn’t the end of the world by any means.