With both positives and negatives to take from our return to the Premier League so far, Aston Villa were now in the glut of games where most fans expected us to ratchet up some points far more quickly and it needed to begin with Southampton.
Given our overall performances so far, there was every reason to think that that we could do that, but in rather predictable fashion Ralph Hasenhuttl’s boys turned up at Villa Park and we, well, we didn’t in the opening 45 minutes.
2-0 down at the break, we certainly weren’t helped by the eighth minute injury to John McGinn, but it needed to be a massive second half.
It wasn’t.
Six minutes in Southampton made it three and although there was a mini late fightback with Jack Grealish getting on the scoresheet, we were just as likely to concede another as we were to get a second ourselves.
The improvement in Wesley was probably the highlight, but that needed to be three points – not a performance where it looked like the team had never met each other before.
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Villa Park
Premier League
21/12/2019 4:00 pm
Attendance: 41834
Referee: Pawson
| Aston Villa | Southampton | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grealish (75) | Ings (21, 51), Stephens (31) | ||||||
| Heaton | McCarthy | ||||||
| Guilbert | Cedric Soares | ||||||
| Engels | Stephens | ||||||
| Hause | Bednarek | ||||||
| Targett | Bertrand | ||||||
| McGinn | 8 | Armstrong | 76 | ||||
| Douglas Luiz | Ward-Prowse | ||||||
| Hourihane | 56 | Hojbjerg | |||||
| El Ghazi | 68 | Redmond | |||||
| Wesley | Long | 82 | |||||
| Grealish | Ings | 87 | |||||
Substitutes |
|||||||
| Lansbury | Yoshida | ||||||
| Nakamba | 8 | Vestergaard | |||||
| Konsa | Adams | 87 | |||||
| Trezeguet | 68 | Romeu | 76 | ||||
| Nyland | Boufal | ||||||
| Kodjia | 56 | Obafemi | 82 | ||||
| Elmohamady | Gunn | ||||||
Game Statistics |
||
| 19 | Goal attempts | 17 |
| 6 | On Target | 8 |
| 7 | Corners | 5 |
| 16 | Fouls | 15 |
| 2 | Yellow Cards | 1 |
| 0 | Red Cards | 0 |
| 56 | % | 44 |