Despite lacking a manager, a chairman and lots of money, beleaguered Portsmouth produced a performance of spirit and guts last night that will go a long way to lifting the mood at Fratton Park. Aston Villa were disappointing going forward but scraped through to a home fourth-round derby against West Bromwich Albion.

To say this has been a bad week for Portsmouth depends on how one views Terry Venables's way of doing business. Many at the club are pleased to see the back of him. Others are not sure what has been going on behind the scenes.

Portsmouth's optimism will have been tested on discovering that Villa had lost only one FA Cup replay at home in 66 years and dented on learning that Villa's joint leading scorer Dwight Yorke was back in the team.

On 21 minutes Villa took the lead. Stan Collymore knocked on a pass to Savo Milosevic, who took the ball on his chest, pushed it past a defender and fired it past Alan Knight.

Spurred on by this early success, Villa twice went close to extending their lead. Collymore hit a post from 20 yards and Alan Wright hit the bar with a chip over the advancing goalkeeper.

However, Villa began the second half anxious to reassert their Premiership authority and in the first 10 minutes they twice went close to increasing their lead. The saviour on both occasions was Portsmouth's veteran goalkeeper Knight.

First Ian Taylor on the far post knocked a ball back to Simon Grayson, whose shot was instinctively parried by Knight. A minute later Mark Draper stole in on Milosevic's cross and saw the goalkeeper produce another reaction save.

The scare served to demonstrate to the home fans how fragile a 1-0 lead can be while acting as a source of encouragement to the 3,000 or so Portsmouth fans.

Aston Villa: Bosnich; Ehiogu, Staunton, Scimeca; Grayson, Draper, Taylor, Wright; Yorke; Milosevic, Collymore.

Portsmouth: Knight; Whitbread, Thomson, Awford; Pethick, McLoughlin, Foster, Simpson, Russell; Hall, Durnin.

Referee: M Rennie (Sheffield).