Vassell ensures Allardyce outburst cannot hide Bolton's flaws

With one beautifully worked early goal from Dion Dublin, and another by Darius Vassell late in the game that will make Bolton's Gudni Bergsson cringe whenever it is replayed, Aston Villa basked in back-to-back wins yesterday for only the second time since Graham Taylor returned as manager in February.

An apparently routine victory was not without controversy, however. Sam Allardyce, the Bolton manager, later launched a scathing attack on the referee, Matt Messias, for refusing his team a penalty when Villa's rookie right-back, Rob Edwards, tugged the shirt of the former Villa trainee Michael Ricketts with 14 minutes remaining and the home side leading 1-0.

Told by reporters that Taylor had admitted his "heart missed a beat" after Edwards' indiscretion, Allardyce said: "Mine's still in my mouth, and there's anger deep in my stomach. It's a crucial decision which the referee has bottled, and if they can't make those decisions they shouldn't be in the Premiership."

Allardyce added: "I see that Jeff Winter gave Francis Jeffers a penalty when Arsenal were at home. Funny that, whereas we go away and we don't get one that's cast-iron. Referees are professional now, so they should be making professional decisions. Apart from pulling the shirt off Michael's back, how much clearer could it have been?"

While the incident fuelled Allardyce's suspicion that the "smaller clubs" do not receive the rub of the green – even though he felt Mr Messias was otherwise "excellent" – Manchester United's win over Sunderland at least maintained Bolton's position just above the bottom three.

He would do well to redirect some of his frustration against the Bolton players. Despite arriving with only two defeats in nine fixtures, they looked lacklustre and seldom threatened to deny Stefan Postma a second clean sheet in as many league appearances.

Villa's first goal followed a fluid move down the left, starting when Thomas Hitzlsperger sent Alan Wright on a surge. As Gareth Barry made an overlapping decoy run, the full-back swept in a low cross which Lee Hendrie stepped over. Dublin, in splendid isolation, sidefooted deftly past a flat-footed goalkeeper.

Bolton might have been expected to exploit the rawness of Edwards, a 20-year-old centre-half playing out of position in only his second outing, but what little danger there was to Postma came from the opposite flank where Jay-Jay Okocha resembled an exotic bird that had unwittingly alighted in the Bull Ring.

The penalty that never was came as Bolton at last mounted a modicum of pressure. It produced little more than a long-range drive by Ricardo Gardner which Postma dived to smother after 79 minutes. Within 60 seconds, Villa had made the points safe.

Wright's long ball looked more of a clearance than a pass and Bergsson reached it first by the dead-ball line, only to play it feebly against Vassell, who had dutifully tracked him back. The England striker, handed the kind of gift-wrapped opportunity that Gary Neville presented to Shaun Goater in the Manchester derby, cut inside to fire across Jussi Jaaskelainen from the angle of the six-yard box.

Aston Villa (4-4-2): Postma 6; Edwards 6, Samuel 7, Mellberg 8, Wright 7; De La Cruz 5 (Cooke, 88), Hendrie 6, Hitzlsperger 6 (Kinsella 5, 67), Barry 7; Angel 4 (Vassell 7, 67), Dublin 7. Substitutes not used: Ridgewell, Enckelman (gk).

Bolton Wanderers (4-4-2): Jaaskelainen 6; Barness 6, Bergsson 5, Whitlow 6, Charlton 5; Nolan 5 (Bulent, 85), Okocha 7, Frandsen 5 (Tofting, 76), Gardner 5; Pedersen 4 (Facey 4, 62), Ricketts 4. Substitutes not used: Livesey, Poole (gk).

Referee: M Messias (York) 6.