Ashley Young wore the scars of battle as he walked off turf that, on occasion, he might have mistaken for a battlefield. But the wounds he inflicted on Derby before Martin O’Neill, the Aston Villa manager withdrew him, perhaps for his safety as much as a slight groin strain, will prove far more damaging.

With his right foot, Young supplied the ball with which Gareth Barry set up Martin Laursen for Villa’s first goal and he scored Villa’s second as Derby, despite their sturdy fight, remained rooted to the bottom of the Premier League. It was not the prettiest encounter but, with Young’s confident and incisive running and passing on the left and Gareth Barry’s link-up play and industry, Villa raised their game sufficiently in the second half to earn this win.

“We needed to be more forceful than we had been in the first half and we needed to get the ball to Ashley more often, both of which happened after half-time,” O’Neill reflected.

“There was more purpose about our game, Nigel Reo-Coker got to grips with it in midfield and Gareth performed as we’ve come to expect from him. But Ashley can be really great. He wants the ball all the time. In the second half we saw the fruits of that desire.”

Before this the spectacle had been uninspiring. Derby defended with a firm resolve and Villa struggled to find their rhythm. Billy Davies, the Derby manager, had made a brutal but fair assessment of his team – “I think we’re too soft, too quiet, too nice. We’ve got to become more ruthless in our play and we’ve got to up it very quickly” – and his players reacted well to the public admonishment.

They were assertive in the early stages, but also toothless. The Rams have not scored since Kenny Miller’s goal in the 1-1 draw at home to Bolton on September 29 and, with the Scotland striker injured, their barren run continued. Steve Howard tested Scott Carson with a powerful shot from 25 yards. The visitors came close when Howard’s header down inside the Villa penalty area was chested by Giles Barnes to Craig Fagan whose left-footed shot from 12 yards ought to have hit the target. Instead it cleared the crossbar.

Villa carried more threat but they struggled to show it, failing to find a way to unleash Young effectively. Stiliyan Petrov made little impact on the right and Barry was only sporadically successful in feeding Luke Moore and Gabrial Agbonlahor. Villa did carve out openings, such as the opportunity that fell to Zat Knight from a Barry corner but his close-range shot was blocked. Agbonlahor’s impressive acceleration represented Villa’s best hope of a breakthrough and when the striker burst through and rolled the ball back for Barry on the edge of the penalty area a better effort might have been anticipated than the shot that the midfielder.

The atmosphere and tempo remained lacklustre. As Mellberg had a header saved by Stephen Bywater, the Derby goalkeeper, from a corner, Villa’s frustration grew. Then everything changed after the interval, with Barry and Reo-Coker instrumental in breaking down the Derby defence. Barry progressively got forward and served notice to Derby of the danger to come with a clever ball into the penalty area that almost released Agbonlahor. Much livelier, Villa began to play to their strengths. Young made increasingly dangerous runs along the left.

When the substitute Gary Teale knocked him over to concede a free kick Young took it himself, executing the perfect delivery for Barry to head the ball across goal and Laursen had the easiest of tap-ins. Four minutes later the issue was put beyond doubt. Jay McEveley was caught in possession by Agbonlahor, the Villa striker raced into the box and forced Bywater to make a good save. The ball rebounded to Reo-Coker, who lifted the ball over the Derby goalkeeper where Young fired his right-footed volley into the net.

At the other end Howard headed over at the back post from a corner and substitute Rob Earnshaw volleyed over. Toothless Derby remained. “But there was spirit and a good attitude and work ethic,” insisted their manager. “We just made two individual errors, for which we were punished.” A disturbing pattern indeed.

Star man: Ashley Young (Aston Villa)

Player ratings:

Aston Villa: Carson 6, Mellberg 6, Knight 7 (Davies 88), Laursen 7, Bouma 6, Petrov 6, Reo-Coker 7, Barry 8, Young 8 (Maloney 69), Agbonlahor 7, Moore 6 (Berger 77) Goals: Laursen 57, Young 61
Derby County: Bywater 5, Griffin 6, Moore 6, Davis 6, McEveley 5, Leacock 5, Fagan 6 (Earnshaw 66), Oakley 6, Pearson 7, Barnes 6, Howard 6