Aston Villa - 1 Bolton Wanderers - 1 George Graham, alias the patron saint of centre-halves, can frequently be heard lamenting the degeneration of defensive standards in English football but the former Arsenal manager might just have enjoyed this impasse.
Aided and abetted by a surfeit of safety-first managerial tactics, this was a defender's afternoon with Olof Mellberg shining in an Aston Villa rearguard only ruffled by a series of uncharacteristic slips from Alpay Ozalan, who possibly had his mind on a certain fixture in Istanbul next Saturday.
If Mellberg was good, Bolton's Thome again showed why his nickname is "The Wall". Afterwards Sam Allardyce credited the Brazilian's arrival for transforming Bolton from soft touches to something approaching denial experts.
Defending ultra-deep, Bolton succeeded in ensuring that Darius Vassell and Juan Pablo Angel rarely succeeded in getting behind Thome and company, dictating that David O'Leary's strike force were persistently siphoned unthreateningly wide.
Accordingly, it was no surprise that Villa's best pre-interval chance came from a set-piece, Angel's free-kick hitting the bar. With Jay-Jay Okocha, their most creative influence, not exactly relishing being minded by Gavin McCann, Bolton proved equally sterile, failing to force Thomas Sorensen into a serious save in the first half.
Even so, Bolton might have scored a minute before the break when Kevin Nolan nodded beyond Alpay before colliding with Villa's keeper. The ball span to Giannakopoulos but the Greek somehow failed to put it into an empty net.
Sorensen, suffering a muscle spasm in his side, failed to reappear for the second period and his replacement, Stefan Postma, was beaten only 53 seconds after the restart.
Scored by Nolan, it was a route-one goal featuring Simon Charlton's long ball and Davies's headed flick which enabled Nolan to turn a wrongfooted Alpay.
Volleying right-footed from just inside the area, the midfielder bent his shot home. It was Bolton's first away goal of the season but much credit should go to Davies who, as their lone striker, worked industriously throughout.
Suddenly Villa had no option but to attack and they equalised in the 57th minute when Angel - whose previous attempts had been two comically miscued volleys - finally found his range with an instant, bent right-foot shot from just outside the area after Gareth Barry and Lee Hendrie conjured the opening.
Soon Davies fired fractionally wide and Alpay headed against a post. Perhaps deciding a point was not enough after all, Allardyce introduced Mario Jardel. Yet with Mellberg suppressing the Brazilian, it was Villa who spurned a heaven-sent opportunity after Ivan Campo apparently fouled Angel. From the penalty,Angel's kick was parried by Jussi Jaaskelainen.
Justice was probably done because replays showed that Angel, as well as Campo, had been shirt tugging before the Colombian's collapse. As O'Leary rightly reflected at the end: "No one deserved to win."
