Draw’s a Brucie bonus after real derby dogfight

NEW Aston Villa boss Steve Bruce began his reign with a point as the local derby against Wolves ended in a draw.

But Villa Park’s fifth home league draw in six games this season could quite easily have ended badly for Roberto di Matteo’s successor.

Villa took the lead through Jonathan Kodjia’s 15th-minute penalty only for Wolves to level with a spot-kick of their own from Helder Costa.

And Walter Zenga’s visitors had enough second-half chances to have won comfortably.

Bruce’s side began in the bottom three of the Championship thanks to the day’s earlier results and they ended it in 20th – nine points behind his old club Birmingham who are in the last of the four play-off places.

And the fallen giants’ latest manager certainly now knows the full size of the job he has taken on.

In a game of penalty decisions, two given and one not, Wolves got the rough end of the deal.

Villa playmaker Jack Grealish had already given a warning of his close control before he drove into the penalty box where he went down after slight contact from Dominic Iorfa – his England Under-21s international team-mate in midweek.

Kodjia converted the 15th-minute penalty but Wolves levelled 19 minutes later, also from the spot, after a far less controversial decision.

Having left Costa alone on the edge of the area, a desperately back-tracking Aly Cissokho tried to cover but the Wolves winger’s goalbound left-foot curling shot struck his outstretched arm and Costa himself netted the spot-kick.

Wolves then had the best penalty shout of the lot early in the second half when the recalled Micah Richards bundled over Jon Dadi Bodvarsson but nothing was given.

The visitors could feel hard done by but they had only themselves to blame after that as Prince Oniangue and Bodvarsson fired wide, sub Nouha Dicko shot over from an angle and Oniangue was denied by a great save from Pierluigi Gollini.

Villa defender James Chester said: “I think the way the second half went it was a good point.

“It seems to be the story of our season so far that we have one good half and one bad half.

“I’ve played under Steve Bruce and won promotion. There’s plenty of games to go and I’m confident he can get us going in the right direction.”

Wolves skipper Danny Batth said: “We finished on top and we felt there were some things that could have gone our way.”