Aston Villa v Southampton Post Match Thread

[steamer]

I think the last two seemed like consolation goals
Pity one of the chances from Trex earlier had not gone in.
But we need to sort the midfield out, Barkley was poor, at times SJM and Luis were missing.

[Hillbilly]

I think Trez was our man of the match. Didn’t give in. Always available. Showed where the goal was even if he had an unerring ability to hit the goalie. McGinn was hopeless.

[RamboandBruno]

Hopefully we take the positves from that last half hour, and really fucking learn from that first hour.

I thought we were the much better side for the whole 2nd half, despite a great finish from Ings. 2 beckhamesque free kicks from Ward-Prowse, and they dominated us in midfield. I thought Barklay, McGinn and Luiz woke up in the second half and like I said we dominated against a very good Southampton side.
If I take anything from this, is that the heads never dropped and we kept creating even at 0-4. We will win more than we lose this season and I still think at top 10, top 8 finish is realistic, which would be massive progress.
Really pleased for Watkins getting a goal as well, although isolated he continues to run the line well and still looks a much better forward by miles compared to what we had last year, that’s 4 in 6.
Oh and despite the inevitable doom and gloom, we win our game in hand, we’d be joint 2nd.

[dave shelley]

What the hell has happened to the much improved defence?  Terrible.

[AlexAlexCropley]

Mings was a driving force second half

[Risso]

At least we salvaged the goal difference a bit, and looked better second half.  But we can't keep having these kamikaze 45 minutes.  The first half was every bit as bad as Villa at their worst last year.

[rougegorge]

At least we didn't throw in the towel and concede five or six. 

Ultimately, we got our shit together too late, but we're back scoring and the performance for the last quarter of the game was pretty good.  First half was the very definition of insanity.

I agree. I was thinking 6 or 7 after Ings scored.

We played well at 4 nil down, but it's one thing having shots and making the keeper work at that stage as opposed to the first half.

Luiz and Cash were culpable conceding dangerous free kicks instead of letting Walcott or Adams probably miss.

McGinn improved a bit in the second half but he was generally ineffective and Luiz wasn't as influential as he has been.

[Three Spires Villa]

I will take the positive that we kept going and got three goals. I know it means nothing as 0 points and two defeats on the bounce. But we didn’t throw the towel in and that is important

[Small Rodent]

Negatives:
Silly free-kicks gifting them goals
Long and high balls to big opposition

Positives:
Strong fight back
There is a bit of belief out there
We do have some good players even on an off day
Our resident troll was utterly pathetic in his attempts, probably because his first love were playing in the other side.

[RichardBatchelor]

Mings was a driving force second half

Yes, he was as good second half as he was dreadful up to 0-4

[Baldy]

We played the first half with the attitude 'there are three teams at the the bottom of the league with only one point, we are safe from relegation.' Terrible attitude.

Much better attitude in the second half.

Our first half attitude cost us this game.

Disappointing. 

[RamboandBruno]

We played into their hands in the first half and we got battered for it. They have a really good and confident team and an excellent manager. We got battered by letting them play. They switched off a bit in the second after going up 4-0 which allowed us to get back into it. Our three goals shouldn’t mask all that happened before when they truly were up for it. The stats will be deceptive. They were the better side when they needed to be.

Agree with that to an extent, but whether they took their foot of the gas or not, they had lost the momentum and that was down to us playing better as much as them standing back. The games carries on for another 5 mins, we equalise and maybe even win as unlikely as that may have seemed.

[villa for life]

Cash is fine. They sat back so villa did better.


Barkley is the problem. Smith needs to work it out, Mcginn is much more of a threat going forward, but being asked to sit back since Barkley’s arrival,

[PaulWinch again]

We have to respond much better to going behind in games - it’s going to happen. We have to be much more resolute and know when to dig in. We lack game awareness too often.

[RichardBatchelor]

Really annoyed about the third goal. We’d already seen what JWP did with the first yet approached the free kick exactly the same. No man on the line, Martinez standing completely to one side and no jump from the wall. Awful, was only slightly harder than a penalty. We go in at ht 0-2 and there’s a chance. Dreadful dithering defending. Stick a man on the line FGS.