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Your support makes all the difference.Not only was this the first Premiership battle of wits between two former England managers, Graham Taylor and Terry Venables, but there was also the unusually high number of 11 Englishmen on view. All of which, at the start of a week when England launch their Euro 2004 campaign, can not have filled Tord Grip with optimism as he endured a goalless, soulless stalemate.
Grip, assistant to Sven Goran Eriksson, will have learned little about the probables and possibles for next Saturday's game in Slovakia that he and his fellow Swede did not already know. Paul Robinson and Jonathan Woodgate were prominent in frustrating Villa in a match they ought to have won but could have lost had another candidate for the Bratislava plane, Lee Bowyer, not fluffed the best chance of the afternoon.
Meanwhile, Darius Vassell probably clawed back some ground on Alan Smith in the striking stakes. The Villa player always looked a more likely source of a goal than Smith, who never had an opportunity to repeat his feat of scoring for England against Portugal at the same venue last month. Even the lively Vassell, however, was firmly policed by a Leeds defence well marshalled by Dominic Matteo, who will undergo minor knee surgery today after withdrawing from Scotland's squad for the weekend game in Iceland.
Villa have now failed to score in six of their nine fixtures to date and only Sunderland have scored fewer goals. Their cause was not helped here by first-half injuries to Ronny Johnsen and Oyvind Leonhardsen, but Taylor said afterwards that the match represented his side's season in microcosm. "We're dominating games for long spells but not converting our chances. We just have to keep at it. The last thing I'm going to do is criticise them. If we keep performing like that, the goals will come."
Venables had dropped Mark Viduka for the first time in a League game in more than two years at the club. He could find no place either, even among the substitutes, for Olivier Dacourt, who this week joins up with the France squad. Without fresh blood, Leeds finished the match looking leg-weary after Thursday's Uefa Cup exertions in Ukraine, even surviving a scare deep in stoppage time when Jlloyd Samuel's shot whistled past the angle of post and bar.
The new Leeds manager, having lost four times by the end of September, is clearly not averse to grinding out points. "You can't play football all the time," Venables said. "We've been involved in a lot of attractive games, but now it's time reality set in. We get stubborn first, earn a clean sheet and then there should be a goal in us. When you're just a good footballing side, you can be brittle and lose matches."
Villa attacked well down the flanks, Ulises de la Cruz becoming the latest player to exploit Ian Harte's fallibility. The Ecuadorean also nutmegged Harry Kewell, who was his now-customary maddening mix of sublime and ridiculous. Dion Dublin sent two headers flashing narrowly wide, Vassell tested Robinson on more than one occasion and there were near-misses, too, for Lee Hendrie and Juan Pablo Angel.
Leeds, despite being on the back foot for long periods, worked the clearest opening three minutes into the second half. Kewell, for once eluding the excellent Olof Mellberg, cut into the Villa box and picked out Bowyer's run. The newly-capped England midfielder took careful aim, beating Peter Enckelman's dive, only for the ball to bobble inches wide.
Aston Villa (3-5-2): Enckelman 6; Mellberg 7, Johnsen 5 (Leonhardsen 5, 13; Angel 6, h-t), Staunton 6; De la Cruz 7, Kinsella 5, Hendrie 5, Barry 7, Samuel 6; Dublin 6, Vassell 6. Substitutes not used: Allback, Crouch, Postma (gk).
Leeds United (4-2-3-1): Robinson 7; Mills 5, Woodgate 7, Matteo 7, Harte 4; Bakke 6, McPhail 5 (Viduka 5, 67); Bowyer 5, Barmby 6, Kewell 5; Smith 6. Substitutes not used: Kelly, Lucic, McMaster, Martyn (gk).
Referee: M Halsey (Welwyn Garden City) 6.
Bookings: Aston Villa: Vassell. Leeds: Mills.
Man of the match: Mellberg.
Attendance: 33,505.
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