Proud Dunne hails battling Villa

MARC WILSON came agonisingly close to grabbing a scarcely deserved winner for Stoke as they played out a goalless draw with midlands rivals Aston Villa at the Britannia Stadium last night.

With Peter Crouch and Darren Bent unable to make their returns from illness and injury respectively, both sides lacked attacking quality in the first half, although Villa did hit the woodwork through Emile Heskey, who was subsequently forced off with a recurrence of his Achilles problem.

There were chances at either end as a poor game opened up somewhat after the interval, and Wilson almost broke the deadlock in the 69th minute when his header — from Matthew Etherington’s corner — struck the underside of the bar before being bundled away by Gabriel Agbonlahor, with replays suggesting the whole of the ball was not over the line.