Dublin thwarts Wolves' hungry pack

Aston Villa 3 Wolves 2Few shivering as they trudged off the Holte End will have been fooled by such flattering success. For Aston Villa, gasping as much from the jitters as their clamber from the relegation zone, relief is likely to be temporary.

Where once they had threatened riotous victory against the division's bottom club, Villa ended this contest gripped by nerves and their own inadequacies. The impetus was all golden in the latter stages, even if Wolves were denied any reward for their efforts by their own deficiencies to remain anchored to the foot of the table. The West Midlands may have prevailed over the Black Country, but these remain troubled times in both.

"I'm not kidded by this result, but I am delighted," offered David O'Leary, a second successive home success in the league having hauled his side to 16th place and a point from the cut-off. "We were the team hanging on at the end, but it's three points. There are so many teams bunched up in there, perhaps as many as 10, so it'll zigzag every week. We'll have to do a lot better than that to survive."

For a while, Villa overran Wolves here and were lulled into a false sense of security. When Juan Pablo Angel plundered his ninth and 10th goals of a productive season in a three-minute burst midway through the first half, the talk was of a cricket score.

Gareth Barry's third, guided through the panicked mishmash in the six-yard box three minutes after the break after Mark Delaney had pulled back from the byline, suggested they might yet flourish.

Instead they dawdled again, surrendering both territory and initiative, and were left desperately reliant upon Dion Dublin's new-found assurance at the back to maintain their advantage.

Defeat was cruel for the visitors, though while their defence remains as horrifically porous as it was here, they will not haul themselves from the foot of the table. For all their buzzing energy in stubborn pursuit of the game, the ease with which Villa breezed into their lead will have driven Dave Jones to despair.

Yet Wolves do not know when they are beaten. Alex Rae and Mark Kennedy reduced the deficit. Thereafter, Villa Park was engulfed in tension as Dublin thwarted the hunting Wolves pack, even if Angel spurned his easiest chance in the dying seconds to secure a second hat-trick of the season. "It's a relief, but there was plenty out there which left a lot to be desired," added O'Leary, aware that next up are daunting trips to Blackburn and Leeds. "From now on in, it's a dogfight."