Nicolò Zaniolo nodded in his first Aston Villa goal to rescue a point, with two of the nine minutes of second-half stoppage time to run, but nevertheless at the final whistle the atmosphere felt unusually flat. The Italian cancelled out a smart 87th-minute strike by Cameron Archer, sold by Villa to Sheffield United in the summer, but Unai Emery’s annoyance at not taking victory here was clear. Villa had won their previous 15 league matches at home and failure to beat the team that began the day bottom of the pile, and subsequently pass up the chance to move top of the tree, will doubtless dampen their Christmas spirit.
This was the first time Villa had failed to win a league game at home since mid-February, a time when Philippe Coutinho was on the scoresheet and Villa were mid-table; Antonio Conte was still in charge of Tottenham and Brendan Rodgers of Leicester. At that point Chris Wilder, who returned as Sheffield United manager this month, had not even had his ill-fated 11-game stint at Watford.
