With the stage set for Kevin Phillips to make history by becoming only the third player in Premiership history to score 30 goals in a season, up popped Aston Villa’s Gareth Barry to steal his thunder with his first strike of the campaign. The fact Sunderland salvaged a point to keep their Uefa Cup ambitions alive was thanks to Niall Quinn, the less celebrated half of the partnership, who hit his side’s 85th minute equaliser. On the day Phillips had been voted runner-up in the Football Writer’s Footballer of the Year award, he had probably his most anonymous game of the season. Kept quiet by Gareth Southgate, returning to action after six matches injured, the Sunderland striker was left beating the turf in frustration as he failed to get even an opportunity to add to his 29 goals. Along with the announcement of the FWA award, the blossom swirling around nearby Aston Park was another reminder that the sea son is drawing rapidly to a close. Both sides, however, still have plenty to look forward to. For Villa there is the prospect of their first FA Cup Final for 43 years while Sunderland are chasing a top 10 finish in England’s top division for the first time since 1956. Villa’s manager, John Gregory, continued his recent policy of rotation to give everyone the opportunity to stake a Wembley claim. ‘One or two said “I’m not bothered if I play or not”,’ he said, indicating his disgust with some of his players’ attitudes. Indeed, for most of the first half, the mood of depression that has settled over Birmingham in recent days appeared to envelop Villa, who acknowledged the mood in the city with a giant hoarding declaring: ‘Villa support Rover workers’. Paul Merson, who as a former Middlesbrough player was made to feel as welcome by the Sunderland fans as a BMW executive down the Hagley Road, was particularly disappointing. The turning point came after half an hour when he was off the pitch receiving treatment for an injury and took a telephone call in the dug-out from Gregory. It was unlikely he was asking who won the 3.30 at Sandown but, whatever was said, he was a different player after it. Merson turned Sunderland inside out throughout the second half as Phillips could only watch and admire. Yet when Villa did take the lead it came from a most unlikely source. For Phillips a game without a goal is like a day without a drink for an alcoholic, but for Barry a goal is like your great aunt’s small sherry at Christmas - a once a year experience. Not that Sunderland joined in his joy. They claim their keeper, Thomas Sorensen, was blocked as he came for Alan Thompson’s corner, leaving Barry a relatively simple task of heading the ball past Michael Gray on the line. Therefore, they will have seen justice in Quinn’s equaliser. The 6ft 4in Irishman once more belied the myth that he has no skill by collecting Nicky Summerbee’s corner and driving a low shot into the corner for his 14th goal of the season. --- *The Guardian* Monday, 1 May 2000 *Gregory’s tinkering distracts Villa* We are all actors when it suits us, and John Gregory was hamming it up with gloom something rotten after this less than riveting draw which was, in both essence and execution, a metaphor for Premiership life outside the elite. Sunderland have every reason to be pleased with their position in the table, even if the early-season butter which was spread so thickly has, since Christmas, been reduced to a few scrapings. Villa, by contrast, have turned around an indifferent start, when Gregory’s job appeared threatened, but now need to win the FA Cup, or weasel into Europe via Chelsea’s Premiership position, in order to convince themselves that some progress has been made. Gregory’s post-match despond was laughable. “We blew it … Four points lost in two games … Too many mistakes.” Yet here was a man three weeks away from Wembley, and the high point of his short managerial career. Who could possibly take such maudlin ramblings seriously? His brow furrowed, Gregory finally conceded that he would “fall back on the good points”. Better than his sword, but much more of this forced despair and the pre-Wembley mind games he is obviously playing may be horribly misinterpreted. Footballers are simple souls, and Gregory’s attempts to give everybody a crack of the Wembley whip appears to be inducing a somewhat hesitant, introverted response within his side. Perhaps they see it as a lack of conviction by their manager. The big bonus for Gregory was the return of Gareth Southgate, whose presence had much to do with Kevin Phillips’s anonymity. But if this was an encouragement, Ugo Ehiogu’s guileless and abortive lunge at Niall Quinn, who then deftly turned in Nicky Summerbee’s low corner, was a genuine reason for Gregory to get out the worry beads despite Gareth Barry’s opener on the hour. With the vast areas of Wembley to defend, no manager wants to see a key player make this sort of mistake; and neither does he want to see another player, whom he has misgivings about anyway, so out of touch, namely Benito Carbone. Paul Merson, for all his sudden surges, was also bereft of that final cutting edge and when he was off the field he received telephonic instructions from Gregory in the stand. Of course, the one call that Merson would dearly love to receive is from Kevin Keegan, and this despite his self-imposed international retirement. Peter Reid’s summer is already sketched out, and it does not include the InterToto Cup. He wants his players refreshed and replenished. He also needs more of them, and of a higher quality, for the pressure on the Sunderland manager and players alike will be far more acute next season. As for Gregory, he must surely now play his most decisive hand in the remaining matches against Wimbledon and Manchester United. Currently his efforts to give everybody a chance to prove themselves prior to Wembley look counterproductive.