Aston Villa 0 Manchester Utd 0:MANCHESTER UNITED have got into the habit of treating their lopsided Premier League programme as a penance.

The idea seems to be to suffer now and enjoy radiant performances later. It could all work out but the champions should reflect on their sub-standard efforts in that arduous string of away games.

Alex Ferguson's team have squeezed a single point from their fixtures at Liverpool, Chelsea and Arsenal. There was a haul of four points from those encounters last season. United are not toothless, with only Chelsea and Manchester City outscoring them in the league so far, but there are days when an apparently fearsome team falters.

The contest was relentless at Villa Park and the visitors had marginally the better of it but made little of the pressure. Their best opening was a tricky chance, from a bouncing pass by Michael Carrick, that Wayne Rooney blazed over the bar in the 63rd minute. Clubs such as United are rightly refused excuses and they ought to have had an edge to their play even in the absence of the injured Dimitar Berbatov.

With Rooney and Carlos Tevez offering little more than industriousness, Ferguson's hope would have been for a few devastating seconds from Cristiano Ronaldo. The Portuguese, however, was as moody and fractious as a child who has stayed up long past bed-time. Perhaps that frame of mind was natural in a footballer who had been to Brazil and back in midweek for his country's friendly there.

By Martin O'Neill's reckoning, this could all have been far worse for United. The Aston Villa manager argued that Nemanja Vidic should have been dismissed for his manhandling of Gabriel Agbonlahor in a second-half incident, even if the fouling had just about stopped before the pair entered the penalty area. The referee Chris Foy did not see any offence and would have been unlikely to detect the denial of a goalscoring opportunity in an incident that mostly took place on the wing.

All the same, it is the measure of Villa's advance under O'Neill that they had a grievance. On many other occasions managers and players at the club could barely bring themselves to speak of the matches they had endured against Ferguson's team.

This was the first point Villa had claimed against United since October 2002. With generous funding from the well-regarded owner, Randy Lerner, and the judicious management of O'Neill the club will prosper.

This is already a time to be relished. Everyone has their hopes but neither arrogant expectation nor grumpiness after setbacks has taken root. Villa Park is a pleasingly down-to-earth place. The club have a package that will let two adults and two children see next Saturday's match with Fulham for £40. Deals of that sort for Premier League fixtures do not seem to crop up at Old Trafford, Stamford Bridge, Anfield or the Emirates.

Having won at Arsenal, they might have faltered here but instead came up with the response required in the moments of crisis against United. The midfielder Ashley Young, for instance, came back to make a wonderful tackle on Park Ji-sung as he was haring into the goalmouth. The right-back Nigel Reo-Coker, for his part, did nothing that would let Ronaldo slip into a happier frame of mind.

O'Neill is jubilant about recent developments and, particularly, with Agbonlahor's debut as a substitute for England last week. Barry and Young also featured against Germany while Curtis Davies was on the bench. Even if that was not Fabio Capello's preferred squad, it still reflected the rise of Villa.

Now the test is for O'Neill's men to live with the expectations they have awakened. "Winning regularly is a knack that is hard to acquire," he said. "We have had a big disappointment (when losing 2-0) at Newcastle. Then we go and get beaten by Middlesbrough. For us to be treated seriously, we have to win a game when it's hard. The only game we have won where we have been second-best was here against Blackburn. There's a lot of pleasure to be had, playing brilliantly, but the other thing is something we have to learn."

The education of the squad is progressing, all the same, and United, for once, could not teach them a hard lesson.

Guardian Service