Southampton 0-1 Aston Villa post match thread

[ROBBO]

until the goal i thought Barkley was very poor, he finished the half well then dropped away second half. John McGinn is not suited to defensive midfield, last season he lost form when he played there, the new fella gives DS more options, it's good to finally watch Villa and look for a win instead of not losing at all cost.

[JD]

A great win. After dominating against Burnley and coming away with nothing it was great to get three points with an indifferent performance (although it wasn't pretty to watch).
About time we won ugly.

[robbo1874]

Is it fickle that I really like Jamie Carragher now?

I just thought that. 
He is gushing about us.   
But he still reminds of Basil Brush

seems as if we have different pundits for the Optus Sports coverage. They had Tony Adams and Paul Scholes and Owen Hargreaves for this one. Adam’s didn’t say much but was pretty fair. Hargreaves was also fair and seems quite intelligent in his analysis. Scholes finished up gushing over Grealish and his last comment, said with a smirk, was ‘Villa will be lucky to hang on to him’.

And he no doubt thinks his club has a divine right to sign him and assume he’d rather play there, the twat.

yeah that’s what I was implying. I also typed ginger twat at the end, but deleted it before posting!

[ktvillan]

Great tweet from McGinn

Which was?

Just as well it wasn’t my backside

#UTV9

And Thank God Gareth Barry wasn't there to take any penalties.

[Astral Weeks]

We are a good side.

Good sides, even the best ones, grind out wins whilst not playing at anywhere near their best.

I think we'll probably finish around 8th this season, maybe a bit higher. We are going to have more ups and downs and will remain a bit inconsistent, but I'll take that, as pretty much every single one of us would have before the season started.

More than anything what pleases me is we are so entertaining to watch. We must surely be the team neutrals most enjoy watching, our games are never boring.

After a decade of stinking the top flight out, how great is that?

Pretty much exactly how I feel. I now go into every game looking forward to watching us play.

Me too. I love watching this team.
Even in the first half when we were under pressure (though hardly the "onslaught" the Sky commentator would have us believe), I texted my mate and said I was really enjoying it because it was a proper contest between two good teams.

[JD]

We are a good side.

Good sides, even the best ones, grind out wins whilst not playing at anywhere near their best.

I think we'll probably finish around 8th this season, maybe a bit higher. We are going to have more ups and downs and will remain a bit inconsistent, but I'll take that, as pretty much every single one of us would have before the season started.

More than anything what pleases me is we are so entertaining to watch. We must surely be the team neutrals most enjoy watching, our games are never boring.

After a decade of stinking the top flight out, how great is that?

Totally agree Paulie. We are already 3 or 4 points off last years total and long as we are making progress that's what matters. Finishing 8-10th is great progress.   

[London Villan]

Finishing in a european place will be the difference in keeping or losing Jack.

[JD]

I disagree London Villan.

As long as we keep improving and signing better players I think Jack will stay. I don't think getting into Europe this season will be the make or break for Jack.

[richtheholtender]

Finishing in a european place will be the difference in keeping or losing Jack.

I don’t think it will be to fair. If Jack only stayed on the basis of us getting to Europe this season then they may as well have sold him last year and invested the wages elsewhere because the chances of going from staying on goal difference to qualifying for Europe are extremely slim. That slim that it shouldn’t really be happening. I do think however, too 10 needs to be achieved and would probably have been a more realistic conversation with Jack and his representatives, which they’re on course to do. The club is progressing as fast as it can to match their own, ours and Jacks expectations. I do think Europe will need to be achieved next year though.

[Meanwood Villa]

Yeah we have to put up with the media and fans of other teams selling Jack, let's not do it ourselves! I think when he signed the new contract he was giving us at least two years (barring us going down or barely staying up again).  If we carry on as we are the feelgood factor will persuade him to stay. If someone does want to buy him it'll cost them a hell of a lot of money.

[Astnor]

After Burnley that win did all sorts of good to me.

Grealish cant be praised enough really. His moments of quality wins games like yesterday ; assist to Barkley, same his goal at Burnely and the list goes on and on really. Magic appear when inteplay with other quality moves like Barkley s yesterday and Luiz s assist at Burnley. Interesting yesterday that commentators in early stages of the game did applaude the genius of their manager putting Ward - Prowse at right back; they put their best player to stop Jack and even so he did him for the goal fx and their midfield where really disorganised because of it. He does exeptional moves in every game - yesterday the comentators was wondering if he in fact where running faster with the ball than without it after he left their midfield behind with the ball . We have good players now and probl will get some more but what team had we ve been without him? He cant be replaced neither in the future.

Matinez - have to love everything about him also his (latinamerican) passion - he gives everything he has in every situation

We where the better team yesterday - impossible to deny it!
 

[RamboandBruno]

Southampton are struggling for results but are a good side and their high press game is impressive and had us pegged back, especially in the first half. Given, it was a dogged performance from us, with some moments of class and an excellent result, we need to be able to produce these kinds of performances as well as the strutting our stuff performances against the likes of Newcastle.
Some other observations.

They had done their homework on how we play and in the 1st half closed Martinez down quickly, stopping his generally excellent distribution that kick starts many of our attacks.

I was surprised that Trez didn’t come on for Traore on about 60 mins.

Barcklay is playing himself to fitness and I thought did generally well tonight.

Mings was excellent and deserves credit where it’s due.

Thought their manager showed a bit of class in post match interview not banging on about the decisions too much.

I thought Smith should of made a couple of subs, but the fact he didn’t doesn’t make his game management average as has been mentioned earlier on the thread. There are plenty of times this season when Traore has been hooked on 60-70 mins, he must of had his reasons to keep him on last night. This time two years ago we were mid table to lower half championship after having a January where we got tonked by Wigan and scraped draws at home to QPR and Hull. Smith has got us up, kept us up and now has built an excellent side who play excellent football and will be challenging for an European place this season in two years!! that is top quality management.

[lovejoy]

I’m not sure about Traore, he seems like an icing on the cake player whereas we often need a player to help us grind out victories.

[Smithy]

I think off the back of the last two performances, if we'd accumulated 3 points there wouldn't be too many complaints - it's just we've lost one we should have won, and snuck one we could easily have lost.  We definitely had the luck last night.  That said, the saves Emi made weren't lucky, the goal we scored wasn't lucky.  It's a game we lose last season, definitely.

I thought we looked a little leggy second half, which is perhaps no surprise given it's our fourth game in 10 days, and by and large it's been the same 11 players on the pitch throughout. It's a little worrying Smith doesn't seem to trust in the replacements to keep playing at the same level as the 11 on the pitch at the start.

Barkley said something interesting on Sky, about getting his match fitness as he's not really doing any training since coming back - which to me implied it's been play/recovery/play/recovery cycle for the last ten days.  So maybe it's no surprise we looked a little flat?  Two more games in the next six days - I'll be interested to see if some of the first 11 get a little rest, even if it's starting but only playing an hour.

[Smithy]

I’m not sure about Traore, he seems like an icing on the cake player whereas we often need a player to help us grind out victories.

In games like last night, definitely.  But at times, especially when we have a decent chunk of possession, he looks like a massive threat, and is scoring goals.  I suspect if we'd started Trez for his higher work rate and protection for Cash we might have considered the set-up 'negative' as it's 'only Southampton'.

It is important that the first 11 don't start to believe they will start regardless of the level of performance, we want them absolutely convinced a drop-off in their levels will see a return to the bench - not sure we have that right now?