Grim portents were stirred around this match like a witch's brew. There was the swirling wind, occasional rain, a ploughed field of a pitch and two teams attempting to pull out of a tailspin of consecutive defeats.

If the fixture promised little it produced, perhaps, a little less. At the end both managers were able to shrug and claim that they had stopped the recent rot, but neither looked happy and had little reason to. The spectators looked utterly miserable and those impartial observers among them were again forced to question the standard of the Premiership.

Aston Villa had lost their four previous games, their FA Cup defeat against Fulham followed by league defeats at the hands of Newcastle, Blackburn and Leeds.

John Gregory, the Villa manager, used the context of that glum sequence, and the fact that two of the club's former managers, Brian Little and Ron Atkinson, had lost their jobs after poor results against Wimbledon, to seize this point like a precious stone.

But in another context, that of the weekend results concerning Manchester United, Chelsea and Arsenal, who now appear to be galloping over the horizon in a cloud of dust and leaving Gregory to round up a posse fit enough to pursue them, this was a disappointing afternoon.

Joe Kinnear, too, looked in need of a good spin doctor to sell this result. Wimbledon have not won one of their last eight matches in all competitions and have failed to score a Premiership goal in more than six hours. "Coming on the back of three league defeats I was delighted that we dug in and got a clean sheet," said Gregory after the match. "This is a bit of a graveyard for managers and the last place we wanted to come to after the spell we've had.

"We had a good first half but had nothing to show for it. In the first 45 minutes Paul Merson was as good as he's played for a long time and we forced Wimbledon to change their tactics. But we keep grinding on. With 12 games to go we now need to show some our old form."

Worried by the frailty of his defence in recent weeks, and still without Mark Bosnich and Ugo Ehiogu, with Gareth Barry on the bench, Gregory switched from his usual 3-5-2 to 4-4-2 and at the start, at least, the transition appeared seamless.

Merson, in particular, enjoyed his role wide on the right and almost inspired Villa to take the lead in only the third minute. Seven minutes later he provided something even more exquisite. His superb through-ball outwitted the Wimbledon defence and Julian Joachim might have made more of the chance. Merson was also involved in the best move of the game in the 32nd minute, although this time he shot wide of the left post following some clever movement and first-time passing from the Villa midfield.

That was as good as it got. In the second half Villa allowed Wimbledon to muscle their way back into the game and the home side might easily have won it, particularly in the 68th minute when a Jason Euell cross from the right was met by a header from Efan Ekoku which he could only direct straight at the goalkeeper, Michael Oakes. After Gregory conceded: "We should have won today, to keep in touch." But at least goalkeeper Bosnich is on the way back to shore up that troubled defence. "Mark is very nearly ready after his right shoulder trouble. He wasn't really ready to start today but I had him on the bench and he could be in the running for the weekend."