The city of football thuggery descends on Villa Park and once again a Sheffield club, home or away, can be depended on to illustrate the darkest of dark arts on the football pitch. There is no game their roughhouse tactics cannot spoil and so it would be prudent to appoint officials able to tackle their worst excesses. Unfortunately they never do.

Joe Mercer’s Villa make it three League games without scoring to record nine wins, six draws and nine defeats in twenty four Division One games this season.