WITH a full moon hanging above Villa Park, it seemed like the Dunney Monster would be back to haunt City.

But Craig Bellamy cancelled out the big defender’s first half goal as City toughed it out and earned a deserved draw.

For so long, it had looked like an old City script had been taken out of the drawer of history and dusted off.

Before the match all the attention was on Gareth Barry, making his return to the ground where he spent 12 excellent years.

To boo or not to boo, that was the question. One national radio station even ran a poll to decide whether the Blues midfielder deserved to suffer the verbal slings and arrows of the fans who used to idolise him.

Amid all the heated debate, it had almost been forgotten that there was another man turning out for the first time against a club where he had been a long-time hero.

Of course, there was little controversy as far as City fans were concerned – they cheered the big Irishman, one and all.

But there was a sense of fate about it all, especially when Dunne trundled forward for set-pieces and was being marked by Barry.

Vicious

It was almost as if City were inviting the irony. But once the inevitable was out of the way, City settled to show their mettle and dominate Villa for long periods.

The warnings were there for City right from the second minute, when Ashley Young’s corner swung and dipped viciously towards the near post and would have gone straight in but for Shay Given’s outstretched leg.

But it was City who provided the brighter, sharper football for much of the opening half.

The only problem was that all their smart approach work crumbled  into a lack of quality in and around the box, where Dunne was superb alongside James Collins.

Craig Bellamy was tormenting Carlos Cuellar down the City left, working well with Wayne Bridge, but time after time his invention was not converted into goals by teammates.

And then, on 15 minutes, came the moment which City fans had dreaded. Whether Gareth Barry should have been marking Richard Dunne is a moot point – he was out-jumped by Darren Fletcher inj the recent derby.

But Dunne wasn’t about to stand around discussing such details. He simply rose to meet Stiliyan Petrov’s corner and thumped his header past Given.

Response

The City response was to re-double their attacking efforts, but Villa are happy to play on the counter, and the Blues had to be careful with the pace of Ashley Young and Gabriel Agbonlahor.

Barry tried to quieten the jeering masses as he skipped into the box following more good approach work by Carlos Tevez, but a fine tackle by Stephen Warnock denied him.

Tevez was producing some excellent work, buzzing around the fringes of the box, always looking for the little prompt to set a teammate free.

But, as is often his nature, his own shooting was hurried and off-key.

At times like these, with chances hard to fashion in open play, City have always had the set-piece on which to fall back.

It was almost the case here as well, four minutes before half time. Barry took a free kick close to the corner flag and landed it perfectly on the head of the soaring Emmanuel Adebayor. His header was flashing goalwards until Brad Friedel – breaker of many a Premier League heart down the years – flicked up an instinctive hand to twitch the ball over the bar.

With an air of inevitability, it was Dunne who had the last say of the first half, solidly stopping Tevez as the tricky little Argentinian sought to swivel past him in the box.

Barry began the second half in determined mood, his swinging cross narrowly evading Adebayor’s dash, but City needed to step it up.

Mark Hughes responded by taking off Nigel de Jong, who was still feeling the effects of a couple of bone-crunching tackles in the first half, and bringing on the more attack-minded Stevie Ireland.

Tevez again came close to picking the lock with a delightful ball inside Warnock which sent Wright-Phillips free inside the box. He hesitated and hashed his shot with Adebayor screaming for the ball to be laid back to him.

Anger

Villa were a constant threat and Dunne came close to a repeat dose, again getting ahead of Barry but this time planting his header wide of the post from James Milner’s corner.

But it was City pounding forward relentlessly for the most part and they were denied a penalty on 65 minutes when Steve Sidwell clearly leaned into Barry’s cross with his arm.

The fact that the Villa man kept his arm by his side weas irrelevant in this case as he clearly moved towards the ball. But the outraged City fans did not have long to wait before their anger turned to joy.

And it was Ireland who was the initial architect. He slid a smart pass through for Adebayor and the big man showed he is a lot more than a goalscorer with an astute pull-back which Bellamy gleefully smashed home.

Bellamy had been an absolute menace throughout, and as the match drew to a close he somehow drew on reserves of energy to continue to rake wounds down the Villa right flank.

One sparkling run and cross slipped through the crowded penalty area to find substitute Roque Santa Cruz at the far post.

If the big striker had been a couple more weeks into his return from a long injury lay-off, he may well have gobbled up the chance.