ALEX McLeish joked about sneaking Darren Bent into the Stadium of Light in a picnic basket to hide him from the Black Cats’ boo-boys.

But, in the end, it was no laughing matter as Villa were hampered by their inability to defend setpieces and hold onto leads.

That’s five goals conceded from dead-ball debacles in the past three games and nine points dropped from winning positions so far this season.

Rather than putting the clock back an hour this weekend, they turned it back to last season, when Gerard Houllier’s under-achievers tended to similarly shoot themselves in the foot.

More frustratingly from a Villa viewpoint, for most of this steady, if unspectacular, performance they worked hard for a first win on their travels, only to blow it.

As against Newcastle, QPR and West Brom, they threw away leads and, in a repeat of the Manchester City and Albion defeats, they were susceptible to setpieces.

Renowned for instilling defensive discipline and resilience into his teams, McLeish will be embarrassed by his players’ derelictions of duty which marred an otherwise solid away display.

It was all going so well for Villa when Stiliyan Petrov gave them a 20th-minute lead, albeit at a time when Steve Bruce’s strugglers were slightly shading the match.

There are two settings on the skipper’s shootometer: piledriver and screwdriver. Petrov often gets into good positions only to screw his shots wide of the post.

Not this time. Petrov has started his own personal goal-of-the-season contest and added to his exocet at Everton with a screamer at Sunderland, collecting a pass from Alan Hutton and blasting left-footed into the top corner from outside the box to finish a move engineered by Gabby Agbonlahor’s sweeping cross-field pass.

Villa started solidly with a 4-4-2 formation with Emile Heskey replacing the suspended Barry Bannan.