There are times when football makes no sense and this was one of those occasions. A callow Aston Villa side looked like they were going to be on the receiving end of another hiding when Swansea took an early lead and cut them to ribbons in an opening half-hour onslaught, yet Paul Lambert and his players ended up departing the Liberty Stadium nursing a sense of frustration after picking up only a point.

Danny Graham's goal, in the fourth of five minutes of added time, earned Swansea a draw and denied Villa an improbable victory at the end of a remarkable afternoon. Lambert, the Villa manager, was an animated figure throughout, kicking every ball as Villa recovered from a truly abysmal start, during which Michu hit the upright twice and Brad Guzan made a couple of superb saves, to equalise through Andreas Weimann in the 44th minute before taking the lead when Christian Benteke scored from the penalty spot late on.

The Swansea supporters who were shaking their heads at the idea that Villa had gone in level at half-time were rubbing their eyes in disbelief when Benteke registered his ninth goal of the season. Swansea, though, cranked up the pressure in the closing stages and Nathan Dyer went some way to atoning for the penalty he gave away when he broke down the right flank and delivered a low centre that caused consternation in the Villa six-yard box. Ki Sung-yeung eventually laid the ball off for Graham and, although the striker's first effort was blocked, his second, thrashed on the volley, fizzed beyond Guzan.

While the point may yet prove to be priceless to Villa in their fight to avoid relegation, Swansea were left to rue their failure to turn several gilt-edged opportunities into goals in the first half. "We only scored one goal from seven chances," Michael Laudrup, the Swansea manager said. "The first-half performance was great. We could have been four-nil up after 12 minutes. But we know how it is when you don't score your chances. It only takes one mistake, one free-kick or corner and the game is back level. That's what happened in the last minute of the first half. They were only near our goal twice in the opening 45 minutes. We gave Aston Villa the belief that they could come back in the game and get something out of it. If we'd scored a second or third, we could be sitting here talking about a 5-0."

Laudrup was not exaggerating when he talked about Swansea's opportunities. It is difficult to do justice to just how bad Villa were in the opening 15 minutes. Michu stroked a left-footed shot against the foot of the upright, Graham wastefully blazed wide with the goal at his mercy and Wayne Routledge was twice clean through on goal. Guzan stood his ground on the first occasion and denied Routledge but the Villa keeper was unable to stop him the second time. Released by Pablo Hernández's measured pass, the former Villa winger rounded Guzan before tapping into an unguarded net.

With Lambert naming Villa's youngest ever Premier League starting XI – the average age was 23 years and 120 days – and his team reeling from conceding 15 goals in their previous three games, the natural assumption was that the floodgates would open. Michu came close to adding a second in the 27th minute, when he bamboozled Ciaran Clark with a wonderful piece of skill to create the space to sweep a left-footed shot that Guzan touched on to the upright before Hernández thrashed the loose ball wide.

Villa, though, were thrown a lifeline when Ashley Williams's mistake allowed Weimann to escape in the inside-right channel and convert a pass from Benteke that the Swansea captain should have cut out. The goal galvanised the visitors and they looked much more solid in the second half, although Joe Bennett was fortunate to concede a free-kick, rather than a penalty, when he handled on the hour mark. "Both feet were on the line and the hand was inside. It was a clear penalty," Laudrup said. "It could have changed the game."

Mark Halsey, the referee, had no hesitation in pointing to the spot at the other end of the pitch after Dyer, who had just cleared Benteke's header off the line, needlessly brought down Weimann. Benteke stepped forward and confidently dispatched his spot-kick, only for the travelling supporters' celebrations to be cut short when Graham grabbed his second goal in the space of four days.