*Zenden and Ricketts put paid to dilapidated Villa*

Aston Villa suffered their first home defeat since David O’Leary took over as manager, and on the evidence of this sorry performance it will not be their last.

The scale of the job facing O’Leary if Villa are not to find themselves mixing it at the bottom with his former employers Leeds appears immense.

The Irishman had written in his programme notes about how delighted he had been by the previous Saturday’s draw at Newcastle, but all that optimism evaporated in the course of an afternoon that saw Villa booed off at half- and full-time.

The fear for the chairman Doug Ellis must be that they will now join the thousands of other fans who, judging by the huge swathes of empty seats, had already voted with their feet.

This was Villa’s lowest league gate of the season. ‘You’re killing the club,’ one fan yelled at Ellis at the end.

Upon his appointment O’Leary had insisted that he would be able to work without a budget stretching into millions. That is a claim that is fast appearing to lack substance.

Too many of the team he has inherited from Graham Taylor seem to be a mirror image of the club they are representing - living on past reputation, lacking ambition and generally clueless. And O’Leary does not seem to be able to do anything about it.

The only entertainment for those Villa fans who did turn up was the chance to boo their former players Gareth Southgate and George Boateng, whose only crime appears to be wanting to play for a club which is not stagnating.

Middlesbrough fans usually look forward to away trips in the same way that tourists look forward to a cruise on the Aurora, which is probably why there were so few who bothered to travel.

Those that did were rewarded with the chance to see Juninho start his first match in nine. The Brazilian was off the pace at the start but provided the turning point once he had settled in. That came in the 30th minute when he collected the ball in the centre circle and had the vision to transfer play to the overlapping left-back Frank Queudrue. He put in a cross that Boudewijn Zenden met with a glancing header and put beyond Thomas Sorensen for his first goal since his switch from Chelsea.

Villa had nothing to offer in retaliation beyond Juan Pablo Angel trying a Beckham from the halfway line, but which came closer to hitting the corner flag.

Their fate was effectively sealed four minutes after the interval when Lee Hendrie bundled over Zenden for a penalty that was comfortably converted by Michael Ricketts, a Birmingham City fan. The fans must have thought things can’t get any worse. O’Leary must fear they will.