Valiant Villa play full part in feast

Chelsea 4  Aston Villa 4:The score, with a penalty for the visitors in the last minute, may have been tied up but this was a match in which logic unravelled to joyous effect. Only those with a vested interest can be immune to the delight of such a game. As the sides demolished one another's defences there was debris everywhere and reconstruction work lies ahead for each manager now that two of Chelsea's players and one of Aston Villa's will be suspended after being sent off with a straight red card.

The visitors will miss Zat Knight, dismissed after conceding the penalty from which Andriy Shevchenko trimmed Chelsea's deficit to 2-1, unless a rare success is achieved with the appeal manager Martin O'Neill is inclined to lodge. His opposite number, Avram Grant, will be even more aghast by proceedings featuring the dismissal of Ricardo Carvalho and Ashley Cole, although Chelsea were not such a victim of the referee Phil Dowd's faltering judgment as Villa.

John Terry is already out for several weeks through injury and his fellow centre-half Carvalho now faces a three-game ban for leaping at Gabriel Agbonlahor with both feet in the 80th minute. He is ruled out of Premier League matches at home to Newcastle and away to Fulham and an FA Cup derby tie with QPR.

"I didn't see there was any intention to hurt the player," said Grant, striving to set new standards of partisanship. Carvalho explained he had not seen Agbonlahor after the match to apologise but had asked for a message to be passed on to him.

The Portuguese may have recognised the wildness of his challenge. Grant did not go even that far but it is natural for him to have a beleaguered air. Frank Lampard, for instance, went off here with a thigh strain and Didier Drogba, currently hurt, will be bound for the African Cup of Nations next month.

"I am waiting for the day I will have all my players," said Grant. "It has been a big challenge since the day I started."

Chelsea could hardly afford to be further depleted in defence yet Ashley Cole will endure an instant one-game ban. He was sent packing for conceding the penalty from which Villa levelled the match at 4-4. It had looked as if the Chelsea left-back had initially blocked Agbonlahor's effort with head and shoulder, but the assistant referee immediately signalled for the offence.

O'Neill, given time, might come to the view that his dissatisfaction with a draw at Stamford Bridge is evidence that Villa are evolving. Villa possessed much more zest in the game's initial phase and, with Agbonlahor and Ashley Young, now have attacking panache. In the short term, though, O'Neill will brood.

His side made Grant's line-up appear sluggish. John Carew ought to have put his header into the net in the ninth minute. Five minutes later he met an Agbonlahor delivery and set up Shaun Maloney to take the first of his goals with ease.

The Scot next struck in the 44th minute, hitting a moderate drive that bounced off Petr Cech's arm into the net. It was the Czech's second blunder in rapid succession following the William Gallas winner for Arsenal 10 days previously. Chelsea looked weak and directionless but a penalty got them back on track. O'Neill argued that Knight had made no contact on the substitute Michael Ballack in the third minute of first-half stoppage time. Shevchenko drilled home the penalty.

Despite the blizzard of incident here, the excellence of Shevchenko ought to be kept in view. He squared the match from 20 yards with a drive into the top corner after 50 minutes and in the 66th minute turned playmaker, collecting a pass from the surging Alex before stroking the return ball from which the Brazilian defender finished.

A Villa leveller defied the seeming logic of the fixture but Martin Laursen volleyed in a Young free-kick crisply. Ballack was even more expert from a set-piece when firing past past Scott Carson's left hand in the 88th minute. "There's no contact," O'Neill lamented of the incident involving Laursen and Joe Cole which preceded the free-kick.

In a bold final throw of the dice, O'Neill put on Marlon Harewood for left-back Wilfred Bouma. Whether or not the penalty at the end was warranted, the outcome certainly was.