No matter how much this match was distorted by the thoroughly bothersome and ill-judged refereeing of Rob Harris, the stark reality was that both these teams served up football that lacked guile, dynamic, intelligence and, above all, entertainment. Small wonder that Premiership crowds are decreasing. The assertion that foreign players have lifted the standard of the game in England now seems set in stone but watching this ragbag of a Liverpool team, which appears to lack the basic order out of which freedom and self-creation can be discovered and released, it is easy to see that the passion, for good or bad, is steadily being leached away. Phil Thompson, Liverpool’s assistant manager, was the only member of the club, on the field or the bench, to display any animation. It is doubtful if many of the players took a blind bit of notice of it. Most, in all probability, do not understand him. The previous manager Roy Evans allowed player power to dictate matters at Anfield. Gérard Houllier has responded by breaking up the team and filling it with essentially cheap options. He said afterwards he had learned, in this match and in the derby against Everton, that his side possessed “great heart and resilience”. Imagine the long and baleful look Bill Shankly would have given anybody who had dared suggest otherwise about his team. With four players sent off in the last couple of weeks, albeit Staunton’s dismissal on Saturday a gross injustice, Houllier must impose discipline; not all Mr Harris’s yellow cards for Liverpool, eight in total (two for Staunton), were misplaced. Houllier is having to call up players who are essentially half fit, Hamann being the most obvious example, in the belief that his side will gel again, although those early wins over Arsenal and Leeds now seem little more than false dawns. Patience is the key word at Anfield but, Sami Hyypia apart, there was little quality or form in this performance. The Villa manager, John Gregory, seized on the post-match refereeing debate (Harris has issued 27 yellow cards in three matches) and described Staunton’s sending-off as “outrageous”. This, no doubt, helped to deflect too much debate on the glaring inadequacies of his team’s performance. Houllier, rather quaintly, used the word “daring” to describe the decision to keep Michael Owen and Erik Meijer upfront after Staunton had been sent off on the half-hour; Gregory, however, appeared to have missed this leap into adventure: “We still had to break down two lots of four in midfield and defence.” No goals, no excitement, 11 yellow cards. In the end nothing added up.