And Villa Fans Were Looking Forward To Southampton – Yawn – Match Stats

With football deciding to cancel itself, despite most of the rest of the world mostly continuing as normal, following the passing of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, it feels like an age since Aston Villa fans last had the chance to bury their heads in their hands for 90 minutes.

The most frustrating thing for Villans was our early September showing against Manchester City was actually much improved, and we didn’t get the chance to follow that up against an also struggling Leicester City side. So it was all eyes to tonight’s Villa Park Clash with Southampton.

Could we pick up where we left off?

Let’s go with no. I really don’t want to talk about Southampton or our schoolboy kick and rush approach to the few attacks we actually managed to muster, so I’ll wait for something to happen.

Well, there was a bit of trickery by Bailey as he put a cross in, and Coutinho reminded us he was playing (bit harsh as he had been lively with no end product) with a 5-10 second burst, but he hammered it over the bar ten minutes before the break.

There was better pressure from us at this point, but it was still aimless and we created absolutely nothing of note – I suspect nothing of note was again the game plan, but then in true Villa fashion, everyone seemed to wake up properly and having pulled a couple of saves out of their keeper, Jacob Ramsey rammed home from close range as the ball came off the bar. Even VAR couldn’t rule that one out – but it spent long enough looking.

That goal covered up a hell of a lot of cracks in that opening half, but with Bailey’s late effort that flashed wide, it really should’ve been two – please let that be our bad half!

The visitors made two changes at the break and came out the far brighter as we’d jumped back into neutral. And that’s about all I can nicely say of the second half. Maybe some enjoyed it, calling it gash would probably be too polite and even when I zoned out and watched something far more entertaining, I actually didn’t miss a thing.

This Anfield experiment has failed…badly…just as many thought it would and clearly against City the players raised themselves, as there’s more tea and biscuits at Bodymoor than tactics and we now play worse when ‘the coaches’ get longer with them.

Southampton’s own performance left them absolutely there for the taking but about the best effort we fashioned in the second half was Dany Ings effective halfway line shot into an empty goal that went wide.

And the less said about going two up two for the final six minutes gave me horrid flashbacks of Big Eck and his forwards routine, with two of them playing in midfield. We were never this bad under Dean Smith, so if we accept he needed to go so we could push on further…come on Purslow, admit you were wrong as even if we avoid relegation (on our current form) you’re never packing out a shiny new stadium with performances like this.

Especially with the illogical and societal blind price rises this summer that have already put longstanding Villans off in the name of a ‘waiting list’.

No man of the match as the fans win that again by a mile – shame this one wasn’t postponed as well, but then I wonder how worse we’d have looked with longer to train on the plane glan or whatever it’s called.

Meh.

Aston Villa				Southampton
J Ramsey (41)
Martinez				Bazunu
Young				Walker-Peters
Konsa				Bella-Kotchap
Mings				Salisu
Digne				Perraud			45
J Ramsey			67	Elyounoussi			79
Kamara			44	Diallo			45
McGinn				Djenepo
Bailey			67	Ward-Prowse
Coutinho			84	A Armstrong			71
Watkins				Adams			71
Substitutes
Douglas Luiz			44	McCarthy
Sanson				Lyanco
Ings			84	Caleta-Car
Buendia			67	Aribo			45
Chambers				S Armstrong			71
Augustinsson				Mara			71
Nakamba				Edozie			79
Olsen				Larios Lopez			45
Dendoncker			67	Walcott

Game Statistics
11	Goal attempts	7
3	On Target	1
6	Corners	3
13	Fouls	13
3	Yellow Cards	1
0	Red Cards	0
53	%	47