They couldn't even sell out their own stadium for arguably their biggest game of the season and it was quite clear to see from the first few moments, that they were more interested in not conceding rather than scoring.
It was made more evident when they brought off second half substitute Lee Carsley after going one down from a well worked free kick, that we all saw coming, apart from that is, the Birmingham City defence.
We saw a bit of it in pre-season and it is quite a simple one; play deep and look for Carew to head back into the danger area and hope that someone gets on the end of it and Gabby did, with only a few minutes left.
Some of you might be surprised by what I'm about to say but with 20 minutes to go I was screaming for Carew to come on and us go 4-4-2, because Birmingham City just sat back and were more interested in defending. If they continue to play like that this season they will be relegated.
Anyway, more tomorrow with the post mortem and a man of the match poll will be up any minute, but a fantastic result and while expected, it was made difficult, but our quality, literally man for man, won it in the end.
Before I go, in case some were not aware, that moves us up to 6th place with a game in hand. Not bad that and when you consider it is against West Ham and for a moment add the three points, with a 2-0 win, we'd be 4th, just above Spurs.
{rokbox title=|Aston Villa beat The Clowns :: Another three points for Aston Villa| text=|Before I go, a video for you, just in case you haven't seen it|size=|640 505| album=|demo|}http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8Vg4CLiS60&hd=1&autoplay=1{/rokbox}.