I met a friend at a local pub on Sunday afternoon to chat about the previous day's football matches. He's a Fulham supporter and thought his side were worth at least a point against Arsenal. I agreed. He also mentioned that Aston Villa were the most difficult side in the Premier League to get a sense of. I agreed with that as well.

Villa didn't turn in a stinker at Blackburn Rovers on Saturday, where they lost 2-1 to a late David Dunn penalty. By and large, the match was watchable, with good attempts being made at either end. And as the visiting team, Villa played a mostly decent away game, and might have deserved a share of the points from their efforts.

It wasn’t pretty. You could even make the case that Aston Villa didn’t deserve to win the Birmingham derby. Still, they managed to escape a hostile ground with three points, and that counts for something.