Joe Mercer's Villa lose three successive games for the first time this season and do so without scoring for the first time since the 1955-56 season under Eric Houghton when they finished 20th in the top flight, just outside the relegation places. Villa’s latest fixture is their second in four days as their wildly interrupted season delivered the inevitable fixture list congestion in the final two months of the season. As a result of Villa’s failure to score for the sixth time in the last nine they make it twelve wins, seven draws and ten defeats in twenty nine division one games so far this season as a campaign of such promise before the fixture interruption continues to falter.