*Ehiogu revives flagging Villa*

Aston Villa are beginning to resemble one of those puffed 1500 metres pace-setters who look desperately and vainly over the shoulder for someone else to take up the running.

They had taken just eight points from their previous seven matches but despite their slow-down needed just one point from yesterday’s match to return to the top of the Premiership. At least until tonight.

In the event a late header from Ugo Ehiogu gave them all three but their performance was hardly the stuff of champions elect. They struggled to impose themselves against a 10-man Sheffield Wednesday side whose thoughtful movement and clever passing belied their modest position.

The Villa manager John Gregory admitted: “It wasn’t a great game but that’s the Premiership for you. In a season, in 38 games, I reckon you will get eight very good performances. Then you will have 10 or 15 which are pretty ordinary and the rest will be howlers.

“This one belonged to the middle group. But we did win it and when Julian Joachim hit the post a short time before the winner I had this feeling that it wasn’t going to be our day. But we keep going, we keep showing our character and we keep grinding out the results. I was delighted with the winner because Ugo has been complaining about the service he’s been getting recently.”

While there is a suspicion that Villa may need a little more than this if they are to keep pace with the more exotic talents of Chelsea and Manchester United they have, in Paul Merson, a man who could lend their season a fresh impetus from mid-January. He has been missed.

Wednesday, who have a happy habit of playing well against the leading sides, shaped their side along Villa’s lines, by playing three at the back with five in midfield. They matched the home side with some ease, and for some time after Dejan Stefanovic was shown the red card, in the 20th minute, for his second foul. Both were against the awkward, muscular Joachim.

Wednesday’s manager Danny Wilson was less than pleased with the decision. “It was a scandalous, diabolical decision. I think the referee will feel embarrassed when he sees it again. The second foul was bookable but the first… no way.”

Gregory agreed that Stefanovic had been hard done by but, strangely, thought that the second yellow card had been the more harsh decision.

By then the score was 1-1. Villa took the lead in the seventh minute when Gareth Southgate volleyed home following the most impressive Lee Hendrie’s free-kick. A minute later Wednesday had levelled. Benito Carbone, returning to the side after a Christmas break in his native Italy - he was suspended on Boxing Day - took advantage of a ponderous Villa defence to score with an overhead kick.

Carbone might have put Wednesday ahead in the 42nd minute when his delightful chip from Petter Rudi’s pass sent the ball rolling across the roof of the net.

In the second half Villa’s superior manpower slowly took its toll on Wednesday. In the 59th minute Ehiogu appeared to head a perfectly good goal from Hendrie’s corner and then Stan Collymore, who had replaced Riccardo Scimeca, produced a marvellous, dipping shot from 25 yards which Pavel Srnicek did well to tip over.

The most dramatic effort of all came from Joachim in the 82nd minute, a 20-yard drive which clattered against the top of the right post. Three minutes later Ehiogu headed Villa’s winner from six yards following Alan Wright’s corner.