Villa 3 Everton 3 - analysis

This draw had two winners – the customers who rolled with the punches of this thundering clash and Arsenal.

Villa's throbbing six-goal thriller with Everton yesterday added another to the season's rousing tussles between the teams who looked most likely to break down the barriers to the top four in recent seasons.

But they effectively cut each other's throat with a result which left Arsenal eight points clear in the skirmish for fourth place and Champions League qualification.

Villa have now gone 10 games without a win, seven in the league. It has been a nightmare period, especially because two-thirds of this campaign suggested an historic breakthrough into the elite.

And yet in their last two matches Villa have shown their supporters why they should head for their holidays with hope as well as sun cream.

After the cruel sting in the tail of their epic performance at Old Trafford a week earlier, it was Villa's turn to produce the comebacks yesterday, dragging themselves from 2-0 and 3-1 down against an Everton team who had given them as hard a time as any side this season.

It required an Ashley Young spectacular to win the league game at Goodison after Villa had spent long periods on the back foot repelling wave after wave of Everton attacks – a resistance they were unable to repeat in the FA Cup tie which followed at Goodison Park.

And yesterday, Villa were again tormented in defence by David Moyes's team, struggling to cope throughout with the formidable "front four" of Marouane Fellaini, Joao Alves Jo, Tim Cahill and the visitors' man of the match, Steven Pienaar.

But while a defence which has now conceded 11 goals in just three games must be a source of concern for manager Martin O'Neill – as well as emphasising the significance of Martin Laursen's absence – there is no doubt that Villa have got the "fizz" back in their attacking play.

With John Carew wreaking the same kind of havoc he brought to United's defence, and James Milner delivering an outstanding midfield showing, Villa at least looked more like their former selves, with Ashley Young also hinting that he was returning to form and Gareth Barry and Stiliyan Petrov again impressive – if not dominant – in midfield.

Instead of chasing down the fourth place they once dreamed of, Villa now face a tough fight to repel Everton's attempts to overtake them over these final weeks of the season. To that end, it was heartening to see the team again looking full of goals.

And while Villa's recent decline has been the subject of much grumbling around the previously sacrosanct standing of Martin O'Neill among the fans, it is only right that the efforts of his players are not derided by a top-six finish some might feel represents disappointment.

Villa have been hard at it since last July and the real problem for O'Neill lay not on what his team produced on the pitch but what there was off it – a substitutes' bench that was/is far too inexperienced and weak to carry a sustained threat to the big guns.

Villa's spending will again be the talk of the claret and blue fraternity because, if club owner Randy Lerner is serious about carrying a challenge to the top four, he needs to authorise another major outlay.

O'Neill will also pin his hopes on many of his comparatively-young players returning stronger and better for their experiences this season – with central defender Curtis Davies among them.

Although he has already been called up by England, this is Davies's first full season competing at the high end of the Premier League and it was a sobering afternoon for an undoubtedly talented player.

Villa looked shaky and uncertain trying to cope with Everton's powerful attacking quartet and with Luke Younsg and Zat Knight also coming off second best in the vital individual 'match-ups', the Villa Park fans had to sit through much tension and threat around Brad Friedel's goal before savouring their team's fightback.

Strangely, in the context of how the first half finished up, Villa had looked the sharper of the two teams as they brought on to the pitch a welcome injection of confidence after their stirring efforts at Old Trafford.

But that all changed on 20 minutes when their back line was sliced apart for Fellaini to open the scoring from a Leighton Baines cross, a goal which shattered Villa's growing sense of rediscovery.

Suddenly they were a frantic mess and grateful that the damage was restricted to just a second goal from the predatory Cahill, who reacted quickest to the rebound of his own header off the bar and scored with his second attempt.

But if Villa's back line has been crumbling of late, then at least the front half of their team had been re-assembling the threat that once took them scampering six points clear of Arsenal.

Before the break, the towering Carew would bring his side back into the game, and just as encouraging was Ashley Young's returning threat from the flanks to complement Milner's enormous capacity for work.

However, Villa looked out of it when the excellent Pienaar turned inside a breathless Luke Young to clip a superb drive beyond Friedel, a hammer blow followed by the sight of a clearly labouring Gabby Agbonlahor limping away with hamstring problems.

But say what you like about O'Neill's teams, they have been always fortified by real substance and spirit. And a fightback that would thrill Villa Park arrived just as swiftly as the setbacks.

First Milner produced a stunning free-kick goal in the 55th minute before his re-energised team-mates saw Joleon Lescott's high boot at Petrov in the area bring about a perhaps generous penalty award.

Barry swept it home emphatically, after which the two teams traded blows with the kind of gusto which makes English football the most popular viewing across the globe.

But there would be no winner – except, of course, for the tall Frenchman watching at home in north London knowing his team had survived this challenge from beyond the elite.

Villa's task now is to make sure they are back with another next season.

By Martin Swain.