Posted by John Meyerwitz

The Alex McLeish era at Aston Villa began today with an uninspiring nil-nil draw at Fulham.

Seemingly the entire Holte End made the journey to Craven Cottage for the opening fixture, but all of their sound and fury could not prod the Villan's away from their dull tactics and poor passing in the final third.

Darren Bent’s service was less than adequate from Charles N’Zogbia, who had a poor debut that lasted only 66 minutes.  Hopefully, Bent can chuckle at the irony that his transfer fee had to be recouped during the summer through the departures of his top service providers Ashley Young and, especially, Stewart Downing (to Manchester United and Liverpool, respectively).  One wonders what owner Randy Lerner may spend this winter that will result in a summer clearance of Bent and others.

On the positive side, new signing Shay Given certainly came through where N’Zogbia failed, with quality saves on close range efforts from Andy Johnson and Bobby Zamora.  One wonders, however, if his signing is really just a neutral move after the departure of Brad Friedel to Tottenham.

Emile Heskey, ordinarily as mobile as a telephone booth and more out of date, looked spry in the first half, nearly coming up with a scrappy goal and making a key block at the other end. 

Marc Albrighton briefly injected some pace for Villa after replacing N’Zogbia, but his sole effort on goal was off the side of his foot and sailed wide. 

Fulham, for their part, relied heavily on overlapping runs and monster throws by fresh signing John Arne Riise, who has finally recovered from Craig Bellamy’s mistaking him for a golf ball in their Liverpool days.  Riise filled out his new Fulham kit a bit too much, making viewers thankful that Heskey was not attired in similar spandex.

The point Villa earned for their active defending and flashy goalkeeping may be about what was expected in an opener on the road, but McLeish will need to develop some chemistry between N’Zogbia and Bent if they want to avoid the sort of miserable goal scoring droughts that plagued and eventually relegated Birmingham City last year.  And comparisons to last season’s Birmingham City are probably not what Lerner wanted when he hired McLeish.