2-2

VILLA supporters probably suspected that they can't have it all ways this season, and the point was never more emphatically emphasised than on Saturday.

A Villa side who have frequently gained maximum return for modest investment found themselves short-changed for the second consecutive Premiership match.

A solitary point from impressive displays at Liverpool and Loftus Road is scant reward for a team who have finally responded to their manager's pleas to entertain him.

In the wake of their Southampton debacle Villa have boldly cast aside their inhibition and the freedom of expression which appeared to have deserted them.

Sadly, it has achieved nothing more than leaving them 15 points adrift of leaders Manchester United.

You won't find Atkinson conceding the championship just yet, although I suspect that privately he now sees the two cups as more realistic targets.

Rejuvenated Villa continue to produce the flair and finesse to make their match against Q.PR such a pleasing spectacle. But they should really have left West London with all three points.

But where Villa were previously a team under stress, even when results were going their way, they now look capable of reproducing last season's fluency on a regular basis.

It didn't make them champions in 1993 and I very much doubt if they will lift the 1994 title. But even if there are mishaps on the cup front. Villa can surely return to European football by means of a lofty league position.

That may ultimately depend on whether Dean Saunders can regain the confidence which made him the scourge of opposition defences following his £2.3 million move from Liverpool 15 months ago.

Saunders could have had a hat-trick at Loftus Road, just as he might have done at Highbury last Tuesday.

But while Saunders makes a contribution even when he is not scoring, the fact that he has now gone 10 games without a goal must give cause for concern.

Not that he was the only player guilty of squandering chances. Ray Houghton and substitute Tony Daley should also have done better from good positions, and Dalian Atkinson's scoop over the bar from six yards was the miss of the match.

There can't be too much wrong, though, with a team who create half a dozen clear-cut openings in an away fixture.

Garry Parker was in irrepressible mood, constantly baffling opponents with his cheeky skills and producing a succession of stunningly effective passes.

Ray Houghton is also gradually returning to the influential form he used to show for Liverpool and, with skipper Kevin Richardson as industrious and consistent as ever, it was little wonder that Villa took such a stranglehold of the middle ground.

What a pity, then, that Atkinson's men should twice have to come from behind, appropriately through fine shots from Richardson and Parker, after conceding two untidy goals, one from the unfortunate Paul McGrath's head and the other scrambled over the line by former Villa man Gary Penrice.

The visitors also had a couple of other anxious moments but that was only to be expected with both sides committed to attack.

Maybe it wasn't quite the Match of the Day classic served up by United and Norwich, but the enthralling action at Loftus Road and Old Trafford perfectly illustrated the very best of English football.