Yesterday was so sweet for Villa fans. The way Barry left us meant we all felt like a jilted bride and to see Richard Dunne power a header past a stationary Barry who could not be bothered to jump was sweet justice indeed.

It was a cracking English game yesterday, we started off at a great pace and both teams kept it up for the whole 90 minutes and provided a telling reason why English football is the most admired around. Throughout the game apart from one player (I will come back to Carew) all of the Villans showed great heart and desire to prove themselves worthy of a top 4 challenging side and the first half was a reason we could compete.

2nd half we seemed to step back a bit and allowed Man City in it but despite this and the obvious goal Friedel had little to do and great credit goes to Richard Dunne and for me the signing of the Summer window the big ginge himself, James Collins. These two along with Petrov were fantastic but the clear man of the match for me was Gabby who was a constant threat against central defenders who City had spent £40m on and a huge amount of wages.

It showed last night what great desire, team spirit and no little quality can do for a team against such obvious expensive and quality players. We should look forward to the rest of the season with great optimism and with Downing to come I really think a top 4 challenge is possible and we can get close.

Gabby in the past 6 weeks has shown what great desire and attitude can do so I come to the only negative point of the night. Frankly John Carew over the past few weeks has been a disgrace in a Villa shirt and I do not say that lightly. The effort in the recent games when you compare him to Gabby is so noticeable I do wonder how much longer the players and manager can put up with him. And for the first time last night after the game I heard noticeable criticism of him and the lustre of the Carew myth is wearing thin. For us to be successful we will have to rely on Carew on getting 15 league goals, he has to start scoring soon !