1-0

*Gregory vindicated by Barry’s sense of timing.*

After a weekend dominated by football’s mad dog tendency it is comforting to find the Premiership still led by a team made up almost entirely of Englishmen who are not behaving as if they have had a touch of the sun.

The present Villa side are English almost to a man, the exception being their Australian goalkeeper Mark Bosnich.

Arsenal were the last club to win the championship with a team containing an equally high proportion of English players.

Under John Gregory, a manager as English as fish and chips, Villa have won 14 Premiership matches out of 18 and lost only two. This season their defence has conceded one goal in seven games.

Villa’s present five-point lead does not flatter their abilities. In a league where standards of defending remain pretty chronic it is a rare pleasure to find a team so well balanced and worldly-wise at the back.

They are providing an apt reminder that it is players who make systems and not the other way round. Glenn Hoddle’s insistence on employing three central defenders supported by wing-backs started to creak in the World Cup and appeared even more ill-advised in Sweden, but for Villa this seems a thoroughly natural approach.

The Gareth Southgate who operates in the middle of Villa’s back three is a much more assured prospect than the Southgate who played to the right of Tony Adams in Stockholm and struggled to cover the widening gaps in England’s cover. Here, just past the half-hour, he was facing his own goal when Derby’s Rory Delap produced a dangerous dipping centre from the left, but without hesitating Southgate hooked the ball upfield to safety.

Ugo Ehiogu remains an equally important component of Villa’s defensive unit and few defenders will handle the spidery skills and pace of Paulo Wanchope as efficiently as he did.

In an overrated league whose conceit is fed by television’s glorification of cheap goals, such sound defending is becoming increasingly hard to find.

The best moment here was not Paul Merson’s early winner, well taken though the goal was, but a piece of defending seven minutes before half-time.

A lapse in midfield by Alan Thompson allowed Lars Bohinen to set up a Derby counter-attack. As Villa struggled to get back, the Norwegian found Dean Sturridge in a position to use his acceleration to bear down on goal.

In this sort of situation the modern defender can hardly win. Against a fast-moving forward even a legal tackle risks a penalty and a red card if the opponent goes down, but to hold off simply makes it easier for him to score.

Gareth Barry, however, was in no such dilemma. The 17-year-old dispossessed Sturridge as coolly and cleanly as you please, confirming the impression that he is as exciting an English prospect in defence as was Michael Owen in attack. His interest in the match was ended by a tweaked Achilles tendon after 64 minutes. Simon Grayson, a useful utility, took his place but the youngster’s premature departure was a reminder of how thin Gregory’s playing resources are.

Barry’s success has vindicated the Villa manager’s judgment in giving the teenager a chance, but injuries or suspensions in other positions would leave Gregory with a weak hand. The club have plenty of money as a result of selling Dwight Yorke to Manchester United for £12.6 million and the squad will need strengthening sooner rather than later.

The immediate effect of the team’s good start to the season is that Gregory need not rush into the transfer market to pay inflated prices for ordinary players. So long as the spine of the side, from Bosnich through Southgate and Ehiogu to Ian Taylor and Merson, remains intact the Villa manager can bide his time.

Whether Villa will be in the market for another striker will depend on the success of Collymore’s latest comeback. Whatever happened in a Paris bar during the summer he remains an icon to the Villa faithful, who gave him a standing ovation simply for removing his tracksuit bottoms as a prelude to replacing Julian Joachim late in the game.

Maybe the combination of Merson and Collymore will be as successful as Collymore’s partnership with Bryan Roy was at Nottingham Forest. If that happened, Villa’s challenge would have to be regarded as something other than an autumn curiosity.

Merson won this match with a sharp piece of opportunism on the quarter-hour. Hesitancy by Bohinen allowed Joachim to win possession and although Lee Carsley was quick to cover back he diverted the ball into the path of Merson, who hastened away to slip the ball past Russell Hoult.