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.

In many ways, this was exactly the sort of match that Villa would have drawn or lost last season. Tight until the very end, the points teetered on a knife-edge. A single display of initiative, or luck, would determine the outcome. Remember Federico Macheda? This time, thankfully, it was Gabriel Agbonlahor.

Although the 22-year-old put in a mostly subdued performance, many of his teammates could say the same thing. Birmingham City were easily the more ambitious side throughout the balance of the 90 minutes. In the end, it was their complete lack of penetration that did them in. As much as the hosts retained possession, they never really looked like scoring.

Villa, meanwhile, made only occasional forays into the attacking third but looked far more dangerous than the hosts. James Milner should have had them up after seven minutes but held onto the ball until he missed his chance.

As for the additions to Martin O’Neill’s backline, three of which made their Villa debuts, Stephen Warnock kept both Sebastian Larsson and Lee Bowyer in his back pocket while Richard Dunne was a rock in the centre of defense. James Collins, newly arrived from West Ham, played a decent match, although he failed to clear his lines on two or three occasions and left his teammates scrambling to cover him. That said, his partnership with Dunne is something to look forward to, especially if it means seeing less of Curtis Davies.

In the midfield, O’Neill’s central tandem of Stiliyan Petrov, Steve Sidwell and Nigel Reo-Coker came in for some criticism before the match. And while they often struggled to take the ball off their City counterparts, it was an acceptable performance from the threesome. Sidwell’s presence allowed Petrov to play his preferred role of distributor, while Reo-Coker, although I’m not sold on him, did well enough to legitimize his selection.

For what it’s worth, O’Neill seems to have finally come to his senses after scrapping his dream of a 4-4-2 formation featuring one of John Carew or Emile Heskey, or both. It’s been three matches since he reverted to the tactics that did so well for Villa last term, all wins. Even the debacle against Wigan seems a thing of the past. Maybe it only gets better from here.

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