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Ideally the five things we’ll be talking about soon enough are the five points Aston Villa have banked to reach the 40-point mark.

But in the meantime here are a handful of findings from the vital Villa Park victory over Everton on Saturday.

1) Tally oh

A month ago, it seemed as if 35 points would be enough for survival, but Villa have achieved that now and are still by no means safe. We must all have had our heads buried in the sand because nobody counted on Leicester’s revival.

Villa’s worst ever Premier League points hauls of 38 have been enough to crawl to safety under Alex McLeish and Paul Lambert in 2012 and 2014, but in my opinion it might now take a bit more this year.

Sherwood wants three wins - don’t we all - but one win, next weekend against West Ham and a point at Southampton (bringing a total of 39 points), would surely be survival mission accomplished?

2) Jack Grealish needs more protection

We’re not talking about his diddy, credit-card sized shinpads, but the need for officials to punish blatant fouls committed against him.

Quite why it took referee Mark Clattenburg 73 minutes to find his cards is anyone’s guess. The 19-year-old dribbler was being kicked all over the park by Everton well before Seamus Coleman was finally booked for chopping him down.

At least a moment of poetic justice arrived when Grealish got his own back by leaving one of his opponents in a heap on the turf.

Quite legally, however, as a trademark body swerve unbalanced James McCarthy so much that the Toffees midfielder fell onto his backside.

Grealish’s grin said it all!

3) The referee’s decision is final

The bar has been set quite low for Jon Moss. Former referee Mark Halsey has been crtiical of Moss, claiming Mark Clattenburg should have been given the honour of reffing the FA Cup final instead.

Not on this evidence he shouldn’t. As Tim Sherwood observed, mistakes like Clattenburg’s failure to spot Coleman’s foul on Shay Given in the run up to Phil Jagielka’s late goal run the risk of costing football clubs millions.

It might have been more excusable had that dodgy decision been an isolated error, but the County Durham was consistently poor throughout the match.

Given what happened with Phil Dowd and Howard Webb at Wembley in 2010, Villa need a strong a reliable ref when they face Arsenal on May 30.

4) Rising from the Ash

Sherwood name-checked Fabian Delph and Tom Cleverley after the Everton win and suggested the duo would have impressed watching England boss Roy Hodgson.

But let’s share some of the acclaim with Ashley Westwood. The former Crewe midfielder played a pivotal role in 4-3-2-1 system, as he did in the semi final victory over Liverpool.

His touch and efficiency in anchoring the midfield has been key to retaining possession and building spells of dominance.

5) Villa’s matchday sponsors are having to work hard nowadays

Selecting a man of the match for most of this season has been easy - it’s simply been a case of picking the least worst. Right now it is a much tougher task.

Delph was the chosen one against Everton, but Christian Benteke, Tom Cleverley, Jack Grealish, Leandro Bacuna and Ashley Westwood had strong cases.

Benteke is firing but no longer are Villa a one-man team. Finally the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.