Roy Keane walked into Sunderland’s dressing room after yesterday’s game at Villa Park and liked what he saw; lots of bruises, ice everywhere and grown men smiling like kids. “Yes,” the manager may have thought, “a bit more like it ought to be.” It was the team’s first away win of the season, Keane’s team had moved four points clear of the relegation zone and given itself something to cling on to.

Sunderland’s manager expects his players to put their bodies on the line but only as a first requirement. What pleased him more yesterday was the quality displayed by his players because in the first half especially, they outpassed Aston Villa and produced the best football of the match. The winning goal, coming in the 83rd minute, was scored by Michael Chopra and followed the team’s least sophisticated attack. But that’s how it goes.

Sunderland had not scored for three weeks and without virus-stricken Kenwyne Jones yesterday, it was always going to be a struggle. Yet they played with conviction, as if nothing much was wrong, as if they had every reason to believe they could beat Villa. As it turned out, they had.

Picking on a newspaper report that the sport psychologist Bill Beswick has had a few sessions with some of the Sunderland players, someone asked Keane if the psychologist had had an immediate effect. “Yeah, I think I have,” said the manager, without a hint of humour. In terms of getting inside players’ heads, the Sunderland manager doesn’t need an assistant.

The goal came as the game was petering out. Kieran Richardson’s hopeful lob forward was as much a time killer as a pass but, like the Red Sea in Moses’s time, the Villa defence parted and through it Chopra poured. Even then, Scott Carson could have moved a lot more sharply than he did but Villa’s goalkeeper was in two minds. With the simplest of side-footed volleys, Chopra finished easily.

Martin O’Neill has cut a forlorn figure through the past two weeks. Since playing excellently against Arsenal at the Emirates three weeks ago, his team has been seriously off colour. One goal and one point from the past three matches is not the stuff of European challengers. Because so many are underperforming O’Neill didn’t wish to single out his goalkeeper but he understood the implied criticism in a question about the goal.

“What shall I say,” he mused. “We had a couple of shaky moments around our goal, I would like Scott to keep coming off his line, not be rooted to it, even if it means a mistake here or there. But he wouldn’t be the only one to have made a few mistakes today.”

It was a match of few chances, the excitement never quite touched fever pitch but it was interesting nevertheless. It was an opportunity to compare teams prepared by two graduates from the Brian Clough academy of management. On yesterday’s evidence, it was Keane that would have most pleased the old master. Their passing was superior and, for Clough, that was everything.

Someone suggested to Keane that at this point, ugly victories would be sufficient. Though no offence was intended, Keane nevertheless found it. “I don’t think we won ugly, I think it was beautiful,” he said with the brooding intensity that would get him a stint playing Heathcliff on the West End.

He was entitled to stand up for his players’ performance. Sunderland are committed and intelligently organised. They fight for every ball and when they win it, they protect it. In their quick and precise passing, you saw hours of training ground practice. Once in the opening half, Dean Whitehead played a long, hopeless pass to Richardson wide on the right and Keane was up from the dugout, spreading his arms, asking his skipper what the hell he was thinking.

It was an aberration because Whitehead was one of Sunderland’s better players, covering so much ground and always playing with the team’s best interests at heart. Andy Reid was another star in the midfield. His left foot provided about seven of the game’s 10 best moments and in the comparison with another sweet left-footer, Gareth Barry, Reid won by a distance.

One wonderfully incisive ball gave Daryl Murphy the chance to cross for Roy O’Donovan but his header flashed over the bar. That was the best chance Sunderland had through a first half they controlled against a Villa side playing with a strange kind of defeatism.

They improved in the second half but not by much. Their best chance fell to substitute Marlon Harewood after he turned Nyron Nosworthy but his shot flew just past the post. Gabriel Agbonlahor had a chance to equalise but Craig Gordon made a fine block with his feet. Harewood’s energy and determination was a reminder of just how listless John Carew and Agbonlahor had been for much of the match.

“Since our performance against Arsenal,” said O’Neill, “we have been very disappointing. You wouldn’t have expected the performances we have given since then, one point from two home games is very, very disappointing. But it is my responsibility and I have to do something about it.”

During the second half, when Sunderland did have some serious defending to do, the spirit instilled by Keane was plain to see. His centre-backs, Nosworthy and Jonny Evans, were excellent, especially Nosworthy, who managed the extraordinary feat of putting the 6ft 4in Carew in his pocket. The full-backs, Phil Bardsley and Danny Collins, both played well.

Keane was asked if it might be difficult to keep his players level-headed after such an important win. “It will be very easy,” he said, “we’ve won once away from home this season. If that’s something to get carried away with, we’re all in trouble.”

Star man: Nyron Nosworthy (Sunderland)

Player ratings

Aston Villa: Carson 4, Gardner 5, Knight 5, Laursen 6, Bouma 5, Maloney 4 (Osbourne 74min), Reo-Coker 6 (Harewood 57min, 7), Barry 5, Young 5, Agbonlahor 6, Carew 4

Sunderland: Gordon 7, Bardsley 7, Evans 7, Nosworthy 9, Collins 7, Edwards 5 (Leadbitter 67min), Whitehead 7, Reid 7, Richardson 7, O’Donovan 6 (Chopra 59min, 7), Murphy 6 (Yorke 87min)

Yellow cards: Sunderland: Bardsley, O’Donovan

Referee: H Webb

Attendance: 42,640

Scorer: Sunderland: Chopra 83