We had the players booed when they arrived, apparently arguing with supporters during the game and at the final whistle then abused as they got on the team coach afterwards. Remembering that this was the ground where David O’Leary called us fickle what seems an eternity ago, you can at least say that’s one thing the Villa support weren’t on a miserable day when the performance, once again, matched the weather.

There was an argument to say that Villa were unlucky, being on the rough end of debatable penalty decisions at either end. Equally, this isn’t the first time a top flight team in poor form has come away with a draw against a side from the lower divisions, and it’ll happen again before long. Both of those things, though, obscure the real point.

Villa had the chance to get a morale-boosting win. It didn’t have to be in style, they didn’t have to score a hatful of goals. All they had to do was get one more than the other team but they failed, as they’ve been failing since the opening day of the season. This time they did the hard part, surviving the expected early onslaught, going in at half time a goal up and looking good, then yet again a defensive cock-up led to an equaliser.

The rest of the proceedings were inevitable. The team got more anxious, the supporters more frustrated. The players bore the brunt of the fans’ anger, and it’s hard not to have a degree of sympathy with those who preferred direct confrontation to a more conciliatory approach.

Rudy Gestede scored twenty goals in the Championship last season; if he, Scott Sinclair, Kieron Richardson and Ashley Westwood were playing at Wycombe’s level they’d be stars yet they were arguably the four worst players on the pitch. There are many areas to lay the blame at Villa Park, from Randy Lerner down, and Remi Garde has got to start coming in for some soon if only based on his strange substitutions and inability to instil any sort of defensive order into the team.

However, there are players clearly performing well below their ability, and that’s due to themselves alone. Never mind tactics, confidence, splits in the dressing room or anything else that might be affecting them. I simply cannot understand why a professional sportsman wouldn’t want to give of his best, for personal pride if nothing else.

If you’ve got up early to get to the match, got soaked en route, endured ninety minutes of that sort of performance and spent a fair sum in the process, and are then watching the culprits walk past seemingly without a care in the world, you might be excused if you wanted to let them know what you thought of them. I’m not excusing or condoning it but football clubs trade on the emotions of their supporters and to coin a cliche there’s a thin line between love and hate.

And onwards to the upcoming week’s games. Why we have midweek fixtures scheduled in the winter when other countries finish their league programme well after us is something only the FA can explain (you can hazard a guess that money is somehow at the root of it) but here we are in January with the two surprise packages of the Premier League so far coming to Villa Park.

First up on Tuesday night are Crystal Palace, whose supporters will be facing the kind of journey that ours usually have to make at awkward times. Even a couple of months ago this would have been looked on as a potential opportunity to kickstart a revival; now it’s more like kicking a wounded animal.