Aston Villa’s goalscoring problems have eased this week, with four goals in two games following a 385-minute scoreless run.

Injury to in-form Emile Heskey and a public spat between Norwegian frontman and French supremo Gerard Houllier have not helped the striker situation at the club.

Carew was also an injury problem to add to those of midfielders Nigel Reo-Coker and Steve Sidwell, with Sidwell likely to be out until Christmas after undergoing surgery on an Achilles tendon injury.

 

But Villa’s injury-hit side ended their goal drought at Craven Cottage when Marc Albrighton put them ahead against Fulham four minutes before half-time.

However, Villa missed chances to put the game beyond Fulham’s reach and paid the price of two points when Brede Hangerland equalised for the Cottagers in the game’s last attack.

It looked as if Villa had succumbed to another late equaliser at home to an understrength Blackpool selection this week.

Having twice led, through Stuart Downing and Delfouneso’s first EPL goal, only to be pulled back by former striker Marlon Harewood and a deflected DJ Campbell shot on 87 minutes.

But defender James Collins headed home an 89^th-minute winner to push them back into the top half of the EPL table in tenth place.

Heskey, who has become pivotal to Villa since Houllier’s arrival at the club, suffered medial ligament damage to his right knee in training last Wednesday and looks set to be out for “three to four weeks”, according to a club statement.

The statement added that “the injury will require an operation,” and it stressed that there was “no other player involved in the incident.”

This left Villa with one fit striker, John Carew, for the Fulham trip. But the Norwegian strained a calf muscle in training the day after Heskey’s misfortune.

And to, almost literally, add insult to injury, the 31-year-old “went off at the deep end to a Norwegian newspaper,” according to the Guardian newspaper.

He accused Houllier of being “disrespectful” by suggesting publicly that Carew would have to prove he was worth a new contract at the club beyond this season.

The Frenchman made counter-accusations of stupidity and “living in the past,” which he later claimed were taken out of context, saying:“There was a discrepancy between my words, which were full of praise for John Carew, and what was put up in the Norwegian press.”

27-year-old Sidwell, who postponed his Achilles operation during a previous Villa injury crisis, will now have the required surgery. Houllier said: “Steve’s Achilles tendon flared up again, so the best thing is to do it as soon as possible.”

Reo-Coker injured his knee at Fulham, but Houllier said of his stand-in captain – replacing the already-injured Stilian Petrov: “Nigel is not as bad as we thought.

“We thought it was just a tear but it is just slight damage to the medial ligament. He could be back in training in two or three weeks.”

Fortunately for Villa, their injury-hit squad have a home EPL game this Saturday, against…Manchester United.