Neville Williams/Aston Villa FC/Getty ImagesQPR bottled up Brett Holman (center) and Villa after Holman's goal.

A weekend of counted blessings for Villa, all things considered. A draw at struggling QPR may have felt like two points dropped, but with results in and around the bottom end of the Premier League all going Villa's way, it was a point well gained, you might say.

Not that a 1-1 draw at Loftus Road was anything to write home about (even though, yes, I am currently writing about it...)

Villa drew; Reading, Southampton and Sunderland lost. And so, Paul Lambert may feel a certain amount of satisfaction in the fact that no rivals made up ground on his young team, and, actually, his boys climbed up another place in the league table. Up to 16th place. Nosebleed territory. The dizzy heights of 15th can't be far off.

Lambert, if he's feeling generous, may even now be scribbling Christmas cards and posting them off first thing in the morning - to former club Norwich, who saw off Sunderland 2-1 Sunday, to Liverpool defender Daniel Agger, whose classy header beat Southampton at Anfield, and to Sir Alex Ferguson, who demonstrated yet again why, even in his 70s, he still has one of the sharpest coaching minds in the business.

Amid the frenetic free-scoring first-half maelstrom at the Madjeski, Ferguson made a tactical change to dampen Reading's aerial threat - right-back Rafael off, the more physical Chris Smalling on - and allow Manchester United to exert their authority on the game.

Defeats all round, then, for Villa's nearest and dearest rivals, which means the point at QPR was worthwhile. But it was hard work, and Villa rode their luck at times. Having taken an eight-minute lead through Brett Holman's swerving long-range strike - that goal's been coming, the Australian has looked a threat all season from distance - Villa should have gone on to increase their advantage, but did not.

Instead, Rangers levelled through Jamie Mackie's excellent header and, thereafter, Villa seemed content to contain and hold on for that point. If I were in a more mischievous mood, I'd note Villa's performance bore more than a striking resemblance to last season's typical 'defend-defend-defend-defend-and-take-a-point' approach under the much-maligned Alex McLeish. There was certainly a lack of ambition, with Villa fortunate to escape on more than one occasion.

Shaun Wright-Phillips almost scored twice, and generally had one of those vintage (and rare) performances which made you recall him as an outstanding attacking prospect at the start of his career at Manchester City, before he headed south to Chelsea and it all stagnated. Villa kept losing him - he was finding space too often and was unlucky to meet Brad Guzan, onrushing with determination, with one effort and then the post with the other.

In an attacking sense, Villa offered very little, and in terms of intentions, Lambert gave the game away somewhat with his second-half substitutions. Overlooking strikers Andreas Weimann and Darren Bent (Bent was promoted from suit-wearing executive box spectator to tracksuit-clad bench-warmer for this one) and Stephen Ireland, he went for debutant defender Derrick Williams and midfield pair Fabian Delph and Karim El Ahmadi. Three players who could win you a game passed over for three who will keep you in a game.

Lambert would have taken a point at the start, and that's what he ended up with. He set Villa up to defend, oddly going with a back five of Matthew Lowton, Chris Herd, Ciaran Clark, Nathan Baker and Eric Lichaj - odd because QPR are hardly scoring goals with aplomb, and they were always likely to deploy just one main striker, which they did in Mackie.

In conclusion, a point gained. But I wanted to see Villa push on and go for all three; get the points in the bag when you can. Saturday sees the visit of Stoke and then, after a midweek League Cup tie at Norwich, it's a tough sequence of Liverpool and Chelsea away, and Spurs at home. By the end of that, the point won at QPR may indeed seem like two points dropped after all.

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