*Thome guard proves too much for Villa’s strikers*

George Graham, alias the patron saint of centre-halves, can frequently be heard lamenting the degeneration of defensive standards in English football but the former Arsenal manager might just have enjoyed this impasse.

Aided and abetted by a surfeit of safety-first managerial tactics, this was a defender’s afternoon with Olof Mellberg shining in an Aston Villa rearguard ruffled only by a series of uncharacteristic slips from Alpay Ozalan, who possibly had his mind on a certain fixture in Istanbul next Saturday.

If Mellberg was good, Bolton’s Emerson Thome again showed why his nickname is “The Wall”. Sam Allardyce later credited the Brazilian’s arrival for transforming Bolton from soft touches to something approaching denial experts.

Starting cautiously, Allardyce fielded five in midfield and, though the presence of Kevin Nolan and Stelios Giannakopoulos theoretically created the option of seamlessly switching this formation to 4-3-2-1, it hardly ever happened in first-half practice.

Defending ultra-deep, Bolton succeeded in ensuring that Darius Vassell and Juan Pablo Angel rarely succeeded in getting behind Thome and company, dictating that David O’Leary’s strike force were persistently siphoned too wide to be threatening.

Accordingly it was no surprise that Villa’s best first-half chance came from a set piece, Angel’s free-kick hitting the bar. With Jay-Jay Okocha, Bolton’s most creative influence, not exactly relishing being minded by Gavin McCann, the visitors proved equally sterile, failing to force Thomas Sorensen into a serious save before the interval.

Even so, Bolton might have scored a minute before the break when Nolan nodded beyond Alpay - who, encouragingly for England, was suffering several absent-minded moments - before colliding with Villa’s keeper. The ball span to Giannakopoulos but the Greek somehow failed to put it into a gaping net.

Sorensen, suffering a muscle spasm in his side, failed to reappear for the second period and his replacement, Stefan Postma, was beaten 53 seconds after the restart.

Scored by Nolan, belatedly beginning to support Kevin Davies in attack, it was a route- one goal featuring Simon Charlton’s long ball and Davies’s headed flick which enabled Nolan to turn a wrong-footed Alpay.

Volleying right-footed from just inside the area, the midfielder bent his shot home. It was Bolton’s first away goal of the season but much credit should go to Davies who, as their lone striker, worked industriously throughout.

Suddenly Villa had no option but to attack and O’Leary’s side looked all the better for this. They equalised in the 57th minute when Angel - whose previous attempts had been two comically miscued volleys - finally found his range with an instant, bent right-foot shot from just outside the area after Gareth Barry and Lee Hendrie conjured the opening.

Soon Davies fired fractionally wide and Alpay headed against a post. Perhaps deciding a point was not enough after all, Allardyce introduced Mario Jardel, who has lost 21lb in six weeks on the Atkins Diet.

Yet, with Mellberg suppressing the Brazilian, it was Villa who spurned a heaven-sent opportunity after Ivan Campo apparently fouled Angel. From the penalty, Angel’s kick was acrobatically parried by Jussi Jaaskelainen.

Justice was probably done because replays showed that Angel, as well as Campo, had been shirt tugging before the Colombian’s collapse. As O’Leary rightly reflected at the end: “No one deserved to win.”