Aston Villa 2-2 Wolves: The Sunday Mirror match report

John Carew rescued Aston Villa yesterday from the acute embarrassment of losing at home to West Midlands rivals Wolves.

There were only eight ­minutes to go when Carew got the final touch to a shot from substitute Steven Sidwell and brought Villa level with his second goal of the game.

In a way, a draw was the ­result most people had ­expected. Villa were ­mounting a strong challenge for fourth place, while Wolves are ­fighting to stay clear of ­relegation.

But Mick McCarthy’s men recovered magnificently from going behind to Carew’s early strike and seemed to have done enough to win with a goal by Jody Craddock and an own goal by James Milner.

Since Fabio Capello was watching in the stands, putting Wolves ahead in that way would not have been the way Milner wanted to impress the England boss. But one Villa player who did take advantage of the opportunity was Ashley Young.

He created Carew’s first goal and put Wolves under ­much pressure with the quality of his crosses.

“I thought Ashley was ­exceptional,” said Villa boss Martin O’Neill.

“I was very pleased with him. If the England manager was here, it can only be good for Ashley. He made the first goal for us and his overall game was top class.”

O’Neill also responded to the half-time criticism from the crowd by praising his team.

“I’m not despondent at all,” he insisted. “The opening 20-25 ­minutes was as good as we’ve played this season.

“I was absolutely delighted with the effort put in.”

Nor was ­McCarthy despondent. Asked if he felt hard done by, he said: “No, not really. It was our fault we conceded the [equalising] goal. We’d worked hard on not getting caught on the break.

“But it was a fabulous point and a terrific performance. We could have won it.

“Yet I’m sure when the first goal went in that ­everybody thought that’s that – Villa are going to win four or five and we’ll get a slapping. We’re the whipping boys.”

Fielding the five-man midfield that has helped them stay out of the bottom three, Wolves came to Villa Park with a defensive look. But their game plan took a bad knock as early as the 16th minute.

A sweeping Villa move saw Young beat Ronald Zubar with ease down the left before ­delivering the perfect low ­centre for Carew to tap the home side ahead.

“I thought the first goal was offside,” said McCarthy, and TV replays suggested he might have been correct.

Villa’s lead lasted just seven minutes. When Stiliyan Petrov was booked for a foul on Kevin Doyle – the first of many that Wolves’ striker suffered ­— David Jones floated a perfect free-kick into the area.

Zubar got to it first, but instead of turning the ball into the net he ­unaccountably knocked it back to Craddock.

Instinctively, the centre-back swept in his fifth goal of the season.

The visitors’ day got even brighter in the 38th minute. Jones was allowed to run unchallenged at the Villa defence and put Matthew Jarvis away down the left.

Jarvis cut the ball back so superbly that Milner ­accidentally put it into his own net as he stretched to stop Jones completing the attack.

The second half was much quieter, with Wolves ­concentrating on staying ahead and Villa, for all the crosses rained in by Young, powerless to break the visitors down.

The nearest they came to it was a header by Emile Heskey, from a Young centre, that ­Marcus Hahnemann and Karl Henry somehow kept out in a scramble on the line.

But the next header, from Carew, was more decisive. He nodded the ball on to Heskey, who played it back to Sidwell. The substitute midfielder’s shot looked to be going in when Carew applied the final touch, just to make sure.