Just six matches gone, and already Aston Villa's season bears an uncanny and unhappy resemblance to 1988-89.

Graham Taylor's men, who have a knack of raising their game against the likes of Liverpool, Forest and Tottenham, are inexplicably ill at ease when it comes to coping with the working class sides of the First Division.

First Charlton, then Southampton, and now Sheffield Wednesday - three teams likely to spend the winter in the bottom half of the table have all taken points from Villa with no undue exertion.

Although, as Taylor, quite rightly points out, the season is much too young to start talking about crises, the manager must privately be concerned at his side's failure to stamp their authority on such ordinary opposition.

In South Yorkshire on Saturday, their performance suggested the Holte End faithful may have to endure another nail-biting fight against relegation.

Given that Hillsborough has never been one of Villa's favourite grounds, perhaps a single-goal defeat was not altogether surprising.

The worrying aspect on Saturday, though, was that defeat looked Inevitable from the moment Dalian Atkinson had lashed Wednesday into a 10th minute lead with only the Owls' second goal of the campaign.

For Villa, Nigel Callaghan's free-kick, which deflected wickedly off Nigel Worthington's head, was brilliantly tipped away by home keeper Kevin Pressman, who also kept out a Kent Nielsen drive.