Aston Villa	2 - 0	Derby
Scorers Laursen 57 Young 61	Half Time ( 0 - 0 )	Booked Griffin 44 Moore 45 Howard 87

Aston Villa were favourites for a victory at home to the only club in the country who haven’t scored an away goal all season. But they looked to be making hard work of it until two second-half goals secured a deserved three points.

Both sides made three changes from their previous game, but it still wasn’t enough for Derby who soaked up as much pressure as they could before finally succumbing to the inevitable.

In a rare move forward, Scott Carson had to tip over an early shot from Derby’s Steve Howard, but that was about as much work as the Villa goalkeeper was asked to do.

Instead, it was the home side who assumed control and had the better of the game from there on as they recorded their fifth home win of the league season.

Derby did their best to keep the Villains at bay but were eventually overrun fairly easily. A defence can only take so much battering and the Ram’s have shown this season that they rarely live up to their nickname in either defence or attack.

Zat Knight had an effort saved by Stephen Bywater from point-blank range after some hesitant defending and Giles Barnes hit over at the other end. Agbonlahor also saw an effort go just inches wide as Villa failed to keep up the momentum each time they piled the pressure on.

They controlled the first-half after Carson’s save but failed to find the breakthrough by half-time as the teams went in goalless. It may have given Derby some hope of a much-needed away point or even their first away goal of the season, but they couldn’t hold out the second-half.

It was partly due to the persistence of Martin O’Neil’s side but also due to more elementary mistakes by the Derby defence.

The first goal, after just under an hour, saw their defence go AWOL from a Luke Young free-kick and Gareth Barry was able to hook the ball back to set up Laursen who opened the scoring from close range.

And just minutes later Young was given space at the far post to convert Stephen Bywater’s parry from Luke Moore’s shot after Nigel Reo-Coker had crossed. It was some more poor play which saw Jay McEveley give the ball away and after Bywater had kept out Moore, Reo-Coker’s looped cross to the far post was met by the unchallenged Young who couldn’t miss from close range. The goal all but ended what contest their should’ve been in the game.

Conceding two goals in quick succession failed to bring the best out of Derby. They were still lethargic going forward and didn’t really look like forcing their way back into the game as Villa eventually ran out comfortable victors.

The result moves Aston Villa up to ninth, although the press are likely to concentrate on recent revelations about their manager’s agreement with Leeds while he was still at Celtic. The Midlands side are still like sleeping giants and if O’Neil can get them moving, there’s a chance for some silverware over the coming seasons, but he needs to find the consistency and momentum against the bigger teams.

Another defeat leaves Derby on the bottom of the table and with little prospect of moving out of the relegation zone. They lack the quality to stay up as they are and Billy Davies must be desperate to bring in some fresh blood in the January transfer window. The question is, how much has he got to spend? And with so many weaknesses on the pitch, where does he buy first?


Aston Villa: Carson, Mellberg, Knight (Davies 88), Bouma, Laursen, Young (Maloney 69), Petrov, Reo-Coker, Barry, Moore (Berger 77), Agbonlahor.

Subs Not Used: Taylor, Gardner.

Derby: Bywater, Griffin, Moore, Davis (Teale 46), McEveley, Fagan (Earnshaw 66), Oakley, Leacock, Pearson, Barnes, Howard.

Subs Not Used: Price, Jones, Mears.

Att: 40,938

Ref: Mark Halsey (Lancashire).

By Ben Hughes