With Villa’s injury crisis not improving the club applied to the League to postpone their weekend fixture with Arsenal only for the League’s Alan Hardaker to refuse the request out of hand. 

To compound the insult Hardaker visited Highbury to watch a decimated Villa, forced to field players carrying injury and barely fit, face off against a full strength Arsenal side. 

Happily for Villa, Arsenal were awful and John Gregory’s 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 late equaliser gave Villa a deserved point to help them climb to 10th in the table.

Ron Saunders' 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Villa end a run of two league defeats to make it 🟩 three wins, 🟨 three draws and 🟥 three defeats in 🕒 nine division one games this season.     

Meanwhile, 18 year old midfielder Ian Hendry 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 makes his first appearance in the Villa squad having joined from Eastercraigs 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿.

Midfielder Dennis Mortimer 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 contributes his ⚽ 🔥 40th goal involvement in a Villa shirt on his 🕒 134th appearance at a rate of one every 3.35 games.