Amid the plethora of statistics over Sunderland’s wretched away record, the correlation between the number of players available and places up for grabs proved to be a significant difference between these teams on Saturday as Roy Keane’s side took one giant stride towards survival.

The Sunderland manager had dropped Daryl Murphy, Michael Chopra and Kieran Richardson the previous week for falling below the requisite standard in training. Such ruthlessness was promptly rewarded as two of the miscreants combined for the goal that earned their team a first away win in ten months. As Aston Villa’s confidence waned, Richardson played a pass over Zat Knight’s head and Chopra, on as a substitute, capitalised on Scott Carson’s hesitancy to score Sunderland’s first goal in five games and their first away from home since he netted against Reading on December 22.

“I was very disappointed last week to get left out, but I knew the only way to get back into the team was to perform well in training,” Chopra, who was the subject of a loan bid last week from Cardiff City, who sold him for £5 million last summer, said. “I managed to do that and my next step is to try and stay in the team and to score goals.

“I wouldn’t say it was a wake-up call [to be left out]. It’s just keeping the players on their toes a little bit. The main thing is that we’ve managed to get three points away to Aston Villa. It just gives us that little bit of breathing space on the teams behind us.”

While Villa’s bid to peak in time to seal a European place has foundered amid a loss of form by several individuals who nevertheless keep their places because of the small squad, Sunderland found an edge on Saturday.

Unlucky to lose against Chelsea the previous week, they were without Kenwynne Jones at Villa Park because their first-choice striker was suffering with influenza. The deputies were champing at the bit on the sidelines.

“We’ve had sharper performances the last one or two weeks because players know that they are fighting for their places,” Keane said. “You can’t beat that at a football club. It’s priceless.”

By contrast, Villa have been unable to keep their squad players happy. There is no right back at the club; Gary Cahill, sold to Bolton Wanderers, would surely have been deputising for the injured Curtis Davies by now had Knight continued in this form; Thomas Sorensen, the goalkeeper, has fallen out with Martin O’Neill, the manager, to such an extent that Carson plays with a swollen knee and shrunken confidence.

Villa have produced some magnificent performances away from home this season and, until recently, had done enough at home to suggest sixth place was theirs for the taking. O’Neill has engineered a tight squad that works hard for one another but the problem is, with Nigel Reo-Coker, Gabriel Agbonlahor and Carson out of form, the support players are out of touch or out of the club. Villa might have steamrollered Sunderland if John Carew’s ninth-minute overhead kick, or Marlon Harewood’s stabbed shot, a minute after his arrival, had gone in. When they did not, the game plan deteriorated.

“The big thing about really good teams is that they win when they play badly,” O’Neill said. “The crowd would have forgiven us that if we had eked out a win. It’s my job to get it right. We’ve had over 42,000 people here today expecting better than that.

“Every misplaced pass is my job. I have to do better. However the team performs, it’s down to me. I’ve been here 19 months and this is as low as I’ve felt. Today shows we have a good distance to go.”

How they rated

Aston Villa (4-4-2): S Carson 4 C Gardner 4 Z Knight 3 M Laursen 5 W Bouma 8 A Young 6 N Reo-Coker 4 G Barry 7 S Maloney 5 G Agbonlahor 5 J Carew 7
Substitutes: M Harewood 7 (for Reo-Coker, 57min), I Osbourne (for Maloney, 74).
Not used: S Taylor, M Salifou, S Petrov.
Next: Manchester United (a)

Sunderland (4-4-2): C Gordon 7 P Bardsley Y 6 N Nosworthy 8 J Evans 8 D Collins 7 C Edwards 6 D Whitehead 6 A Reid 7 K Richardson 6 D Murphy 5 R O’Donovan Y 5
Substitutes: M Chopra 7 (for O’Donovan, 59), G Leadbitter 5 (for Edwards, 67), D Yorke (for Murphy, 88)
Not used: M Fulop, R Prica.
Next: West Ham United (h).

Referee H Webb
Attendance 42,640