That Aston Villa have been handed an FA Cup replay just four days before their Carling Cup showdown with Manchester United is "not ideal", according to Martin O’Neill. But the Villa manager has really left the matter at that, and I don’t expect we’ll hear him whinging about it over the next 10 days, either. If Villa are keen to think of themselves a "big" club, this sort of fixture congestion is par for the course.

A home draw against Manchester United is hardly a poor result, but Aston Villa would be quite right to think of Wednesday’s 1-1 stalemate as two points dropped rather than a point gained.

Twelve months ago, Aston Villa were in a dogfight with Arsenal for fourth spot in the Premier League. Or so it seemed. A 1-0 loss at home to Chelsea in late February was the club’s first since November, but by then the gas had run out. Villa wouldn’t win another match until May, and they took just 11 of the season’s remaining 36 available points. And Gabriel Agbonlahor scored just a single goal.