Analysis: Attentions turn to Middlesbrough after forgettable Den defeat for Aston Villa

The starting line-up and the kit will be two of them, though boss Steve Bruce must hope those two most telling of variables – performance and result – are also unrecognisable to what he witnessed on Sunday at The Den.

Villa’s 11th league defeat was also their most irrelevant. A much-changed team limped to a largely predictable result, on the one afternoon in the season when it could have no bearing of the ultimate outcome of the campaign.

Already cemented in fourth position, arguably the biggest excitement for supporters occurred at Derby and Ipswich, where the identity of their Villa's play-off opponents remained in the balance right up until the final seconds. Patrick Bamford’s equaliser at Portman Road, deep into stoppage time, ultimately determined it is Middlesbrough up next and attentions have now turned to the weekend’s trip to the Riverside.

Only four of those who started for Villa at The Den are likely to retain their places in the line-up.

The extent of the changes – and the deliberately makeshift look of yesterday’s team – means Bruce is unlikely to dwell for long on the defeat. He might find frustration, however, in the fact none of those players on the fringes of the first XI did enough to give him the merest food for thought ahead of next Saturday.

Only midfielder Josh Onomah put in anything like a solid performance, while both Scott Hogan and Jonathan Kodjia failed to have any impact on the game up front. Kodjia, admittedly, was making only his second start since returning from serious injury. Yet while the Ivory Coast international has been a menace on the five occasions he has been introduced off the bench, he has lacked the same swagger when involved from the beginning both yesterday and in last month’s 1-0 win over Leeds.

Lewis Grabban, who was introduced as a late substitute along with Jack Grealish and Robert Snodgrass as Villa hunted a leveller, is surely nailed on to start against Boro. Though the game had little meaning in the grander scheme of things, it will be remembered thanks to a statistical anomaly and an inspired piece of goalkeeping from Mark Bunn.

Having not conceded a penalty all season up until yesterday, Villa contrived to have two awarded against them in the same game. The first, after Henri Lansbury had barged over Ryan Tunnicliffe, was comfortably dispatched by Shaun Williams for the only goal of the game. The second provided Bunn with a potentially memorable swansong in what could well turn out to be his final game for the club.

This was only the 33-year-old’s 16th league start since joining Villa in 2015 and his first in a season where Sam Johnstone has been an ever-present.

Yet when James Chester was, somewhat harshly, adjudged to have handled, Bunn came to the rescue, saving Lee Gregory’s low spot-kick with his legs before recovering to keep out Williams’s scuffed follow-up.

Villa hope to sign Johnstone on a permanent deal in the summer but know that may rest on winning promotion.

Yesterday, if nothing else, was a reminder that without their obvious stars they are a functional and uninspiring unit.

The big names – Grealish, Grabban, Snodgrass and John Terry, will all be back at Boro, where Villa will aim to produce a performance somewhere near their best. Anything else, at this stage, would be sorely disappointing.