Southampton v Aston Villa Post-Match Thread

[olaftab]

Stick your statistics  up your arse. We won away 3-2.. For Christ sakes enjoy it.

The most important stat in football is Goals scored  and these stats are summed up below:

Southampton 2 Aston Villa 3.

[olaftab]

At the weekend Southampton out passed Chelsea for 45 minutes so Mourinho switched to a more direct, or long ball, game and they won the game. I think Lambert picked up on that because they commit so many men to pressing high up the pitch they are vulnerable to direct counter attacking. I expect we will see more sides adopt that approach from now.

Yes very good point.

[olaftab]

I'll stop banging the same drum after this. But apparently Ashley Westwood, our metronome, completed eleven passes last night. Eleven!

Steven Davis completed one hundred and eleven

A lot of that comes from how the two teams are set up to play? We know what we are at the moment however Southampton are not Barcelona. Tip-tapping all night can add up the pass score without any end product.

[Clampy]

I realised last night why I hate missing away games. Nowhere round by me were showing it, so we were forced to watch the Stripeyfilth's game whilst getting text's from a mate at the game.

It sounded like a proper smash and grab but those come along every so often. Two superb goals and another one from a midfielder, which is something we've been missing. Not many teams are going to score three at Southampton so let's enjoy it.

[SashasGrandad]

At the weekend Southampton out passed Chelsea for 45 minutes so Mourinho switched to a more direct, or long ball, game and they won the game. I think Lambert picked up on that because they commit so many men to pressing high up the pitch they are vulnerable to direct counter attacking. I expect we will see more sides adopt that approach from now.

Yes very good point.

For once you could see Lambert had some sort of plan - and he knew if we could ride our luck defensively we could hit them on the break. Plan worked perfectly.

Nice bit of man management with Kozak and Benteke. Brave decision to take Kozak off when he had just scored but he was going to make that substitution anyway. Benteke still not playing great but when he came on there was more focus tham last weekend and he could/should have got a penalty.

[fbriai]

As my old boy has just said to me: "Thought it said something about Soton that for all their possession and passing, where it doesn't hurt the opposition, their 2 goals were from headers from old fashioned crosses.", which I think is a fair point as well.

[Ads]

I thought we played quite poorly; recycled the ball way to often and then on three occassions showed genuine class and ripped them apart, before going back to giving the ball away.

And on the 250 mile journey back home I cannot recall a single mile where that fact bothered me.

First up, what a cracking away following for a week night. Well done all.

Southampton reminded me of us under O'Neill. People say they play good football and to an extent their neat and tidy in front of you, but ultimately they had one way of attacking; get it wide and sling it in the mixer. It didn't work when Vlaar was on the pitch, but did when little Lowton and Bacuna were targetted.

KEA did well for the second goal, but he epitomised a largely bypassed an anonymous midfield. We really needed somebody in there with pressence to win the ball and keep a calm head. If we could have done that, then given how high their full backs push on, I think we would have solved a lot of problems and been able to use Gabby wide to murder them in the space.

But whatever, we won and away from home, I am never, ever bothered about a performance.

[flybo]

back at half 1 this morning just got out of bed and I still thinking how did we win that :-)

[amfy]

From last season and through this, I have seen this team pass better as their confidence rises. We have had an opening set of fixtures which have been against teams who are more likely to back us into hoof mode. I believe that as our fixtures ease a little, and the team's confidence rises, we will see more of a passing game return.

The statistic that 50% of Southampton's possession was in their own half is interesting. There was a point in the match where I said 'They look like us' because it just seemed to be going backwards and forwards across the half way line without them seeming to have any clue how to get forward. A team can rack up a lot of possession and pass accuracy like this, when they can't work out how to attack!

On a more anecdotal/personal level, I know that when Saints equalised the first time, I was really drawn in by taunting from their fans, but when they equalised the second time, I stayed focussed on the game. This is because at the first equaliser I thought we would go on to lose it, but at the second equaliser, I really felt we would still win. I think this must be because we were playing better by then. The Villa's tails went up when they took it to 2-1, the self belief started to come into play, and they started to pass, and attack.

Weirdly, for all the talk of poor possession stats, & hoof ball, this was not a dull game. Tense yes, but a really exciting 90 minutes. People could argue that Southampton made it that way, but give us a game when we have 80% possession, spend half of it pissing about in our own half, and lose - then watch us moan about how we can't break teams down, or have no killer instinct.

On a side note, the lucky gloves still appear to be working, and last night I see I managed to bring back my lucky 'getting lost'. I remember a few years ago, Every time I got lost on the way to a game, we won. Randy broke my run by putting on that first set of free coaches for Chelsea & getting us straight there for a 6-0 hammering I think. Well, last night, as we sat in a convoy of coaches trying to make a 3 point turn to go back across the Itchin bridge, I thought that maybe we had gone full circle. Lucky gloves, & lucky getting lost are back!

[badluckeric(gates)]

Nowhere round by me were showing it, so we were forced to watch the Stripeyfilth's game whilst getting text's from a mate at the game.

Twitter is your friend, follow Tayls, I was updated by his KOOZZZAAAAKKKK tweet, I don't know why but I sort of guessed we'd scored. wink.

[*shellac*]

3 points is all that matters.

And we have earned it.

[supertom]

At the weekend Southampton out passed Chelsea for 45 minutes so Mourinho switched to a more direct, or long ball, game and they won the game. I think Lambert picked up on that because they commit so many men to pressing high up the pitch they are vulnerable to direct counter attacking. I expect we will see more sides adopt that approach from now.

Yes very good point.

For once you could see Lambert had some sort of plan - and he knew if we could ride our luck defensively we could hit them on the break. Plan worked perfectly.

Nice bit of man management with Kozak and Benteke. Brave decision to take Kozak off when he had just scored but he was going to make that substitution anyway. Benteke still not playing great but when he came on there was more focus tham last weekend and he could/should have got a penalty.

Kozak was already set to come off. Old negative nelly Houghton made a point about what would have happen if the ball had gone out for a throw when KEA was chasing it. Kozak would have gone off, Benteke on and we wouldn't have scored that goal.
It was absolutely perfect timing from KEA (to actually appear in the game) and Libor to stick one away.

[berneboy]

From last season and through this, I have seen this team pass better as their confidence rises. We have had an opening set of fixtures which have been against teams who are more likely to back us into hoof mode. I believe that as our fixtures ease a little, and the team's confidence rises, we will see more of a passing game return.

The statistic that 50% of Southampton's possession was in their own half is interesting. There was a point in the match where I said 'They look like us' because it just seemed to be going backwards and forwards across the half way line without them seeming to have any clue how to get forward. A team can rack up a lot of possession and pass accuracy like this, when they can't work out how to attack!

On a more anecdotal/personal level, I know that when Saints equalised the first time, I was really drawn in by taunting from their fans, but when they equalised the second time, I stayed focussed on the game. This is because at the first equaliser I thought we would go on to lose it, but at the second equaliser, I really felt we would still win. I think this must be because we were playing better by then. The Villa's tails went up when they took it to 2-1, the self belief started to come into play, and they started to pass, and attack.

Weirdly, for all the talk of poor possession stats, & hoof ball, this was not a dull game. Tense yes, but a really exciting 90 minutes. People could argue that Southampton made it that way, but give us a game when we have 80% possession, spend half of it pissing about in our own half, and lose - then watch us moan about how we can't break teams down, or have no killer instinct.

On a side note, the lucky gloves still appear to be working, and last night I see I managed to bring back my lucky 'getting lost'. I remember a few years ago, Every time I got lost on the way to a game, we won. Randy broke my run by putting on that first set of free coaches for Chelsea & getting us straight there for a 6-0 hammering I think. Well, last night, as we sat in a convoy of coaches trying to make a 3 point turn to go back across the Itchin bridge, I thought that maybe we had gone full circle. Lucky gloves, & lucky getting lost are back!

I really enjoyed reading this post, thank you.
Interesting, thought provoking and humorous!

In fact, as a retired gentleman (well, retired anyway) I thoroughly enjoy and value h&v. Thank you, everyone.

[Phil from the upper holte]

I realised last night why I hate missing away games. Nowhere round by me were showing it, so we were forced to watch the Stripeyfilth's game whilst getting text's from a mate at the game.

It sounded like a proper smash and grab but those come along every so often. Two superb goals and another one from a midfielder, which is something we've been missing. Not many teams are going to score three at Southampton so let's enjoy it.

Unlike you not to go mate?

[Clampy]

I realised last night why I hate missing away games. Nowhere round by me were showing it, so we were forced to watch the Stripeyfilth's game whilst getting text's from a mate at the game.

It sounded like a proper smash and grab but those come along every so often. Two superb goals and another one from a midfielder, which is something we've been missing. Not many teams are going to score three at Southampton so let's enjoy it.

Unlike you not to go mate?

I know. Our normal mode of transport wasn't running a coach and I didn't really fancy official. Besides got Fulham, Stoke and Sunderland coming up so I thought i'd save some cash. What a game to miss though.