Graham Turner’s Villa had now lost three successive games conceding six, and scoring once.

Further entrenching the bizarre and destructive transfer policy under Chairman Herbert Doug Eliis, centre forward Andy Gray made his first appearance for Villa aged 29 since rejoining from Everton in July 1985 for a fee of £150,000.

Gray had been Villa’s leading scorer under Ellis’ previous tenure as Chairman before being sold in 1979.

Gray’s age, 29, was past that of a series of league and European Cup winning players who had been sold by Ellis (Ken McNaught, 28, David Geddis, 25, Tony Morley, 29, Eamonn Deacy, 25, and Gordon Cowans, 26) and was considerably older than Villa’s now departed leading scorer for the previous season Rideout (20).

As a result, despite claims to the contrary, there was little evidence that it was the restructuring of an “ageing” squad that caused those players to be sold under Herbert Douglas Ellis’ chairmanship.