Villa manager Martin O’Neill has challenged striker Emile Heskey to regularly repeat his goalscoring exploits after his first goal in seven months earned the team a point at Burnley.

The England regular stepped off the bench to score an 86th-minute equaliser in Saturday’s 1-1 draw at Turf Moor, heading home James Milner’s cross to cancel out Steven Caldwell’s ninth minute opener.

It was Heskey’s first goal since netting against West Ham in April and only his third since joining the claret and blues from Wigan in January.

Now O’Neill hopes the strike will help kick-start Heskey’s Villa career.

The manager said: “Emile got off to a fantastic start, scored against Portsmouth and was doing very well. There are goals there if you want to go bravely for it and I think he went in bravely. I will not turn around and promise you that by March or April he will have another 12 Premier League goals to his tally.

“I don’t know what is the answer, but what I am saying is he is capable of scoring more than he has in the last seven or eight years and not just in his time with me.”

O’Neill was delighted to hand what was a surprise debut to Stewart Downing after the fit-again winger came on as a late substitute.

The Villa boss said: “It wasn’t meant to catch anyone out. He came into the squad, I had a think about it and I thought maybe if we were trailing in the match he might give us the last 20 minutes.

“It turned out that way. It’s a big plus for him to get on the field of play. In terms of real match fitness he’s a bit of a distance away, but I thought give him a little spurt here and he might provide a little something for us.”

O’Neill had no complaints over Caldwell’s goal – despite it appearing to be offside – and insisted his team were worth a point.

He said: “Burnley might have got a second goal but they definitely deserved to be in front at half-time but I think that on our second-half performance we deserved it.”

The manager will give Republic of Ireland defender Richard Dunne some time off this week to recover from the exertions of the shattering defeat to France.

O’Neill added: “Richard was obviously very down but I had a chat with him early on Saturday and he was keen to play.

“He got through the match but I will give him a rest for a day or two which I think he deserves.”