Villa Secure Deserved Southampton Win But It Wasn’t Easy – Match Stats

So it’s Saturday afternoon and Aston Villa had one of those weird and rare 3pm kick offs – fans were simply hoping that we came away from St Mary’s Stadium with all three points given Southampton are rooted to the bottom of the table.

Head coach Unai Emery didn’t pull any surprises with the starting XI, but the bench was a bit unexpected and rather lightweight.

It was a bright start from us and there were early calls for a potential penalty as Jacob Ramsey broke into the box, but the referee called it right. We were basically in full control though and as the half moved on the chances started coming. Southampton were still in this though, and with a quick break they had the ball in the back of the net, but it was rightly ruled out for a clear offside.

We were playing some good stuff though and the best chance fell to Ramsey, but it was well saved and Leon Bailey skied the follow up. We also then had a very good shout for a pen totally ignored and I can only assume VAR was on a convenient tea break again.

We then had a pause in play and the players were taken off the pitch because an absolute spanner flew a drone into the ground and left it hovering there. We finally finished the last few minutes of the half but we’d have to see how they break effected our momentum.

The hosts were more in it after the break, but we weren’t really in trouble and again it looked like it was going to be one of those days for Bailey given the wasted chances. And it was going to be one of those days, after an incredible stop from Emi Martinez, we simply let them through again to totally score against the run of play – but VAR was awake this time and rightly ruled it out for a foul on Ramsey in the build up.

You still couldn’t shake the feeling we were going to pay for wasting our earlier efforts though, and then things got better. Douglas Luiz sent in a free kick and Ollie Watkins buried it with his head.

1-0 and now we needed to see it out, and we did just that but there was still time for Martinez to pull off another great save.

It’s slowly coming together under Emery.

Southampton				Aston Villa
				Watkins (77)
Bazunu				Martinez
Lyanco				A Young
Caleta-Car			84	Konsa
Salisu				Mings
Walker-Peters				Alex Moreno
A Armstrong			84	J Ramsey
Lavia			61	Douglas Luiz			88
Ward-Prowse				Kamara
Diallo				Buendia			69
Edozie			62	Bailey			81
Adams			61	Watkins
Substitutes
Maitland-Niles				Cash			81
Aribo				Sanson
Orsic			84	Chambers
Caballero				Coutinho			69
Perraud			62	Olsen
Mara			61	Dendoncker			88
Djenepo			84	Sinisalo
Elyounoussi			61	K Young
Alcaraz

Game Statistics
8	Goal attempts	16
5	On Target	5
2	Corners	2
19	Fouls	9
1	Yellow Cards	2
0	Red Cards	0
37	%	63