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A fine finish from Ashley Young helped Aston Villa recover from their 7-1 mauling against Chelsea last weekend as they defeated Bolton 1-0 at the Reebok Stadium on Saturday.

Martin O'Neill's side needed to erase their humiliating defeat at Stamford Bridge, and ignore the midweek speculation regarding their manager's future and they did just that to keep the pressure on fourth-placed Tottenham.

Villa are four points behind Spurs, who occupy the final Champions League qualifying place, while Bolton are not clear of the relegation zone just yet.

Tamir Cohen caused a couple of early scares for Villa as he rifled two low shots that had Brad Freidel worried, but when the action finally switched to the other end, Villa took the lead in the 11th minute with a brilliant effort from Young.

It was a case of history repeating itself for Villa as Young curled home a wonderful effort that left Jussi Jaaskelainen little chance.

When Villa defeated Wanderers 5-1 back in November, it was Young who scored the first and it was the England winger who got the game going again.

Stephen Warnock threaded the ball through to Young on the left side of the box and he looked up and bent the ball brilliantly to net the opener.

Jack Wilshere had a good chance for Bolton but smashed his shot wide and a Fabrice Muamba strike was bravely blocked by Richard Dunne who threw himself in the ball's path to stop it going any further than the edge of the box.

However, after that explosive start the encounter settled down and neither side looked any better than the other.

Kevin Davies found himself up against Dunne, who helped keep him quiet. At the other end John Carew and Gabriel Agbonlahor had little to show for their running.

The game's tempo continued to dwindle although Villa did start to thread more and more passes together in the middle of the park which allowed Young to have another good opportunity from close out but he could not make it count.

On the stroke of half-time, Young had an identical chance to the one that broke the deadlock but he missed his intended destination by some distance.

Straight after the break, Stewart Downing's header only just drifted over for the visitors but there remained little threat of more goals.

Bolton brought Ivan Klasnic on and Villa responded by calling up Emile Heskey from the bench as both teams seemed to want more goals but neither had much impact.

Klasnic had one good chance but failed to beat the onrushing Friedel and Heskey also failed to get the final touch on a Young cross that would have helped seal it for the visitors.

The poor fare was then summed up by Agbonlahor's one-on-one miss when he steered the ball past the onrushing Jaaskelainen but also the far post as the game meandered out before the game finished with players from both teams involved in a shoving match at the full-whistle.