It was now patently clear that the hasty and ill-thought through appoinment of managerial novice Dick Taylor had been an unmitigated disaster. Although luck, plenty of the bad variety, had hit Villa in 1964, there was little confidence that Taylor was the man to realign Villa on the trajectory Joe Mercer had been taking the club at the start of the decade.

The appointment of Dick Taylor that had proved catastrophic after 15 games reached a new low in game 16 as Villa are humiliated at Old Trafford to make it two wins, two draws and ten defeats in fourteen division one matches this season. Taylor had taken over Villa amidst a run of three League wins in seventeen and had now added his own record of two wins in fourteen.