Three red-cards, eight goals, a late penalty and loads of controversy, it would be easy to forget Shaun Maloney's contribution to the Boxing Day entertainment at Stamford Bridge.

But skipper Gareth Barry was today full of praise for the Scottish international who put Villa 2-0 up before the real drama started to unfold.

Maloney had to make way for Curtis Davies after Zat Knight's debatable dismissal and Barry told www.avfc.co.uk: "By the end of the game Shaun's two goals seemed a long way away with what happened afterwards.

"But he's done brilliantly since he's come in. "He deserved the bit of luck with his second and took the first really well. Hopefully he can go on a bit of a run and keep scoring goals."

As we recently reported, Maloney is now far more settled at Villa Park and though frustrated to come off at half-time, the former Celtic man fully understood the reasoning.

He said: "Of course you don't want to come off having scored two goals, but it's all about the team and the manager had to reorganise things.

"The second-half performance from the team was brilliant and I think we definitely deserved to score the late equaliser."