One of Sam Allardyce’s favourite mottos is to “respect the point”, and no side are bigger respecters of the point at the moment than West Ham. They are trundling along at the rate of a point a game and this mess of a match, which started brightly but deteriorated badly, was the fourth goalless draw West Ham have treated their fans to this season, although they would have suffered a fourth straight Upton Park defeat in the Premier League had Aston Villa shown greater ruthlessness.

For Villa, though, it is now 375 minutes without a goal and if Christian Benteke does not score, no other player in their side looks likely to end their barren run. Benteke hit the bar with a header in the second half, and Villa were aggrieved that the referee, Howard Webb, did not send off Ravel Morrison when he appeared to foul Andreas Weimann, who was outside the area but through on goal.

“I’ve spoken to Howard and respect his view,” Paul Lambert, Villa’s manager, said. “From my angle it might have been [a foul]. Sometimes you get them, sometimes you don’t. I thought we had the best chances. I can’t be too hard. We’re creating chances. You’d be worried if you weren’t creating them.”

The opening 20 minutes offered little indication of the mindless scrappiness that would come to blight the match. Villa created the first chance after seven minutes, Ashley Westwood’s lofted pass from deep releasing Weimann, who was played onside by Guy Demel. Weimann had the legs on James Tomkins but not the smarts to outwit Jussi Jaaskelainen.

West Ham were soon causing bother for Villa’s defence, though. From Matt Jarvis’s cutback, Kevin Nolan, the most advanced player in Allardyce’s improvised strikerless system in the absence of Andy Carroll, slashed wide. Jarvis was then denied by Brad Guzan after good work from Nolan, before Jack Collison’s effort brushed the side-netting.

“We did one thing really right today and that was attack the opposition,” Allardyce said. “Sooner or later, the ball will end up going in the back of the net. Our problem is all our goals were shared out last year. At the moment, none of those players in the team are scoring.”

However the main talking point of the first half was Morrison’s escape. Villa countered after a West Ham corner was cleared and suddenly there was the astonishing sight of Weimann, from inside his own half, finding himself with a clear path to goal. Weimann charged towards Jaaskelainen but Morrison, showing a different side to his game, sprinted off in pursuit of the Austrian and then, as the two players tussled outside the area, the Villa striker fell. Weimann claimed there had been a push from Morrison, and he did look to have a case, but Webb waved away his appeals. “Ravel came out on top beautifully,” was Allardyce’s assessment.

Weimann’s afternoon worsened when he departed with a hamstring injury after 57 minutes and Villa retreated without his pace on the break. West Ham responded by finally introducing a striker, Carlton Cole, back on the Upton Park pitch for the first time since his return to the club.

In among the callous mistreatment of the ball, there were a couple of chances created at both ends, Benteke crashing a header against the bar from Matthew Lowton’s cross and Nolan slashing wide after Stewart Downing’s clever reverse pass. In stoppage time, Guzan parried the substitute Joe Cole’s shot.

A few minutes earlier, though, Benteke had almost snatched the points for Villa with an angled bouncer from the left. But Jaaskelainen, so often West Ham’s saviour this season, earned them that respectable point.