Former Birmingham midfielder David Dunn has declared his last-gasp Blackburn winner was all the sweeter because it came against Villa.

Dunn’s 89th-minute spot-kick handed 10-man Rovers a 2-1 victory at Ewood Park yesterday, after referee Mark Clattenburg rather harshly adjudged Richard Dunne had handled inside the area.

Gabby Agbonlahor had put Villa ahead within three minutes before Christopher Samba levelled.

Dunn said: “It’s always good to score against Villa as a former Birmingham player. I had a few texts beforehand from my mates down there saying ‘make sure you score against Villa!’”

The goal helped banish the memory of his infamous blooper in a Second City derby six years ago.

He added; “My little boy will have it on a Christmas blooper video I’m sure. I have to live with it but this has helped a little bit.

“What can I do though? It was funny, even I used to have it on my phone. Sky Plus didn’t do me any favours – it was the advert for that for three months when it was first launched.

“That was a bit of a blow for me. I could have retired if I got royalties for every time that is shown.”

Villa manager Martin O’Neill was unimpressed by the penalty decision, insisting Clattenburg got it wrong.

He said: “I am naturally disappointed to lose all three points. We got off to a great start and I thought that even at one each at half-time we would go on to win the game.

“Perhaps we didn’t create many chances in the second half as we would have liked to have done, but I thought we were certainly worthy of a point.

“There are a new set of directives and I think if your hand is in an unnatural position, you can be adjudged to have handled the ball.

“I did ask the referee for clarification. My point would be if Richard Dunne puts his head in and is hit in the head with the lad’s foot so high it would have been a free kick to us.

“It was disappointing.”

The Villa boss defended his side’s inability to make the extra man count following Vince Grella’s second-half sending off.

He said: “It didn’t affect us, in as much as we tried to get a little bit of extra width maybe to try and break through.

“But with 17 or 18 minutes left in the game I didn’t think the sending off made an appreciable difference to us. It may well have galvanised Blackburn Rovers.”

Rovers defender Samba revealed their gameplan to close down Villa skipper Stiliyan Petrov down quickly had worked.

He said: “First of all you have to stop Stiliyan Petrov passing the ball comfortably from the midfield.

“If he can’t make easy passes, we can close him down and cut the space for Agbonlahor. Then we show the outside to Ashley Young, so he cannot come inside and run the game how he wants to.

“Our tactics worked well.”