Aston Villa 0, Liverpool 0 (D,Post)

Mar 19 2007 by Nick Smith at Villa Park

ONLY a mum could love players like these on this form. As far as Mother’s Day ‘treats’ go, it had all the imagination of a bunch of flowers, with goalmouth incidents about as frequent as available restaurant tables yesterday lunchtime.

But the end-of-season feel to proceedings merely tells you all you need to know about the remaining Premiership ambitions of the two sides out there.

Liverpool’s approach was that of a team with more important things to worry about than the difference between third and fourth.

Marginal, particularly when they weigh up the variation between victory and defeat against PSV Eindhoven.

When this Champions League quarter-final rolls round everyone can expect more urgency and attacking intent than was on show at Villa Park, which was pretty much zero until Jermaine Pennant’s lively late cameo.

But nothing that happened yesterday will shake manager Rafael Benitez’s belief that his side can turn it on when they have to.

Something that needs to be proven, at this stage of the campaign, on trips to Barcelona, not Birmingham.

As for the latter city’s residents, another point towards the 40 mark – which probably won’t even need to be achieved to ensure safety this season – seemed fine by them.

It made the match deserving of its status as not even being the biggest game in Birmingham yesterday, following as it did the promotion showdown between their city rivals over in West Bromwich.

None of which helped Liverpool, of course.

Villa’s laid-back approach meant the visitors were often faced with a claret and blue barrier to pass through and it was a strong one, always seemingly well-placed to pick off the attempted killer pass.

But in truth there weren’t many of those to deal with, as Benitez himself abandoned the adventurous approach with a new-look midfield outfit shorn of the creativity of Xabi Alonso until he replaced Momo Sissoko just shy of the hour.

Before then, Steven Gerrard’s three colleagues in this area only had eight Premiership appearances between them in 2007, with Fabio Aurelio and Javier Mascherano given a chance to press future claims.