Joe Mercer's Villa play with the usual seven day separation between League outings for the first time since the 15th December as their wildly interrupted season promises major fixture list congestion in the final two months of the season. Villa fail to score for the fourth time in the last seven and had now lost three in the last six having lost just twice in the previous nineteen games. As a result Villa make it twelve wins, seven draws and eight defeats in twenty seven division one games so far this season as a campaign of such promise begins to falter under the difficult scheduling. Meanwhile, 23 year old goalkeeper John Gavan made his Villa debut after moving from Walsall Wood in November 1962.