Fluent Villa earn place at the top

The Gullit legend and the belief that he is the answer to Geordie Prayers met stout resistance at Villa Park where John Gregory's team produced the type of fluent, winning football that has become a distant memory for the Newcastle supporters.

It took a 63rd minute penalty from Lee Hendrie to give Aston Villa the victory that keeps them abreast of Liverpool at the head of the Premiership and sees the Gullit era at St James's Park start with a defeat. Let no one be in any doubt, however, that these three points were particularly well-earned.

It would have been a sensation if Gullit, never slow to change a winning team, had not shuffled the pack after the 4-1 drubbing by Liverpool. In the event the three changes were, for him, mildly conservative. The new faces were the Peruvian Nolberto Solano, Aberdeen's Stephen Glass and Andreas Andersson, fresh from his goal-scoring exploits that put England on the road to defeat in Stockholm.

Villa paraded their new £6.75 million signing Paul Merson whose move was finalised too late for this game. He was still rated, at 5-1, by the bookmakers as a likely scorer; an unhappy reminder of the extra curricular activities that he says made his time at Middlesborough increasingly uncomfortable.

With Merson unavailable it was an inconvenient time for Stan Collymore to cry off with a recurrence of the ankle problem that kept him out of the first two games of the season. It meant that Riccardo Scimeca took on the role of emergency striker, but such is the confidence underpinning Villa's impressive start that the young England international slotted into the unfamiliar position with the minimum of fuss.

Both Alan Shearer and his Swedish partner were forced to live on scraps, such was the poverty of the service from the Newcastle midfield. The pressure was relieved was when Gary Speed and the nimble Glass reached hopeful crosses but neither effort carried the power to trouble Mark Bosnich.

It was a clever lofted pass from Draper that won the game, Joachim gathering it and then, as he weighed up his options, taking a challenge from Stuart Pearce in the back. After the penalty Newcastle, with Temuri Ketsbaia on from the bench and eager to get off it, made a huge effort to get back into the game but it was not enough.

Aston Villa: Bosnich, Charles, Wright, Southgate, Ehiogu, Draper (Taylor 67), Thompson (Grayson 81), Joachim, Barry, Hendrie, Scimeca (Vassell 86). Subs Not Used: Ferraresi, Oakes. Booked: Hendrie, Taylor. Goals: Hendrie 63 pen.

Newcastle: Given, Pearce, Lee, Shearer, Speed, Charvet, Glass, Watson, Solano (Guivarc'h 71), Albert, Andersson (Ketsbaia 59). Subs Not Used: Barton, Pistone, Perez. Booked: Ketsbaia.

Referee: G Poll (Tring).