Aston Villa vs. Newcastle United: Final score 0-0 as both sides snooze at Villa Park

If you watched this game, we are sorry. If you played in this game, you should probably feel something approaching shame. Aston Villa and Newcastle drew 0-0 in Birmingham in a match which promised little and delivered with aplomb, leaving the hosts temporarily top of the table despite managing a grand total of one shot on target in their first two games.

A sleepy first half saw a few chances for both sides, but the finishing wasn’t good enough to see either goalkeeper particularly troubled. The visitors were particularly poor, with both Yoann Gouffran and Rémy Cabella spurned glorious opportunities to take the lead. The former completely whiffed on a half-volley at the far post and the latter, a €10 million summer signing from Montpellier, fell down mid-shot after a loose ball presented him with the whole goal to aim at from six yards. The resultant effort trickled sadly past Brad Guzan’s right-hand post.

At the other end of the pitch, the actual shooting was better -- Charles N’Zogbia flashed a free kick just wide, and the French winger also had a looping header beat Tim Krul only to land on the roof of the net -- but the buildup play was little short of disgraceful, with Gabriel Agbonlahor and Andreas Weimann both wasting odd-man counterattacks with ridiculously speculative long-range shooting.

Right back Daryl Janmaat showed his more attacking colleagues how it was done early in the second, testing Guzan with a header from a free kick and then a spanked effort from just outside the area, but not even the Dutchman’s efforts to break the deadlock bore any fruit. We were soon back to the usual routine when a free kick hit Aly Cissokho in the crotch, leading to an unmarked Mike Williamson making a complete mess of trying to smash in the loose ball. The football, that is.

Both sides attempted to turn one point into three by throwing their forwards -- Villa added Darren Bent with 15 minutes to go, by which point Alan Pardew had already introduced Siem de Jong to the fray -- but, predictably , the renewed attacking spirit met the exorcising priest of mediocrity from whose hymn-sheet the game had been sung and perished. The best chance fell to the visitors when de Jong got free on the left and forced Guzan into a decent stop, but their attempts to lay siege to the Villa goal ended when Williamson got himself sent off for a second yellow when he brought down Fabian Delph in injury time.