Express & Star

Aston Villa 0 Sunderland 1

“Forget packing your trunks” lamented one Villa observer afterwards, writes Tim Nash.

As a reflection on Villa’s hopes of qualifying for Europe, it was a pretty brutal assessment. But it wasn’t difficult to understand the reaction.

Defeat on Saturday left manager Martin O’Neill admitting he’s at his lowest ebb since taking over 20 months ago.

This desperate setback made it two points from the last 12, and it seems just when they need results and fortune to go in their favour, they are conspiring against them.

While hope isn’t yet totally lost in the hunt for that single UEFA Cup place, it’s going to be pretty elusive to find now.

A gap of eight points isn’t an insurmountable task, but it’s a difficult one and, on current form, a bleak prospect indeed.

Especially with champions-elect Manchester United at Old Trafford next up.

Maybe Villa have slightly over-achieved up until the last three games. Maybe seventh or eighth is where they belong at the moment.

Whatever their true placing, they’re going to have to over-achieve to keep their fading Euro hopes alive this weekend.

If ever there was a write-off in terms of three points, this is normally the one for Villa. It’s been 22 meetings and almost 25 years since Villa last triumphed at United, when Peter Withe’s brace gave them a 2-1 win on November 5, 1983.

But although Villa need a lifeline at Old Trafford, it’s at Villa Park where the battle for Europe is likely to be won or lost.

Because it’s here the jitters have taken root with some force, and it’s at home where they possess their best hopes of winning games.

In front of their own fans, Steve Bruce’s Wigan, Birmingham City and Bolton are still to come to Villa in 2007-08, sides who have mustered a combined four away wins between them in 47 trips this term.

Events on Saturday mean Villa won’t need reminding that poor travellers can still prosper.

Sunderland hadn’t won away all season, their 15 games yielding just three points.

But once the opening exchanges were out the way, it was Villa who looked as if the confidence had drained from them.

Yet it’s not just belief that seems to have sapped from Villa’s pores. O’Neill and his players refuse to accept fatigue for the sudden dip in result, citing the absence of cups and European competition as good reasons why they should actually be fresh.

But recent performances suggest there’s little doubt some of the Premier League’s smallest squad seem to have gone to the well too often and key players aren’t producing at the same levels of a few weeks ago. Stellar players such as Martin Laursen, Gareth Barry, Ashley Young and Gabriel Agbonlanhor are lacking the gloss of their midwinter displays.

Agbonlahor’s prodigious workrate hasn’t masked a goal drought of 11 games and one in his last 18 matches.

And there must be many around Bodymoor secretly breathing a sigh of relief that the 21-year-old hasn’t made the cut in Fabio Capello’s trimmed-down England squad. A free week before United will at least give the striker the opportunity of recharging his batteries before going again.

It was around this time last season that an out-of-sorts Agbonlahor was substituted then had the luxury of a three-week break the way the fixtures conspired.

No-one could accuse O’Neill of being anything less than utterly loyal to his players, but with Agbonlahor’s current form in front of goal, even the manager must be tempted to finally give Marlon Harewood his first Villa Premier League start.

Ever-present Laursen and Barry, who has missed just one game, look as if they’ve lost some of their sparkle too.

Young isn’t as effective on the right, and, with his deployment there, Villa have lost some of their penetration.

Admittedly, the fatigue argument isn’t watertight, with the club’s only other ever-present Wilfred Bouma the one player who could escape criticism on Saturday.

Confidence is everything in football, but nowhere has it been in more brittle in quantity recently than keeper Scott Carson. At this rate, his season is fast disintegrating.

His latest blunder, in coming and then stopping, helped make Michael Chopra’s mind up to bag an unlikely winner. Again O’Neill will surely remain loyal, but many believe there is now a case for taking him out of the firing line.

Confidence is fuelled by chances and goals and on Saturday it could have been so much different if Villa had taken their early chance fashioned by John Carew.

When the big Norwegian is in the mood, Villa normally do well and if only his ninth minute overhead kick had dropped a few inches to the other side, O’Neill’s side would have been ahead.

Fighting for their lives in the spirit their manager Roy Keane embodied as a player, Sunderland always proved as difficult as O’Neill predicted. Villa still had enough chances to have made the game safe long before substitute Michael Chopra’s 83rd minute winner however.

Harewood was Villa’s biggest culprit, poking wide from Young’s pass which left him with a clean-through opening just before the hour. The former West Ham striker also stabbed over and fired into the side-netting with the outside of his right foot.

Coming a week after some slapstick undid them at Portsmouth, Chopra’s winner continued the cruel comedy of errors, Zat Knight allowing Kieran Richardson’s pass to drop over him before Carson was again marooned in no man’s land. Agbonlahor was denied an equaliser by the legs of Gordon, but Villa’s fire had gone out.

As for those trunks, Villa can only hope the swimwear isn’t mothballed after the players hit the beaches this summer.