Southampton At Aston Villa The Verdict
Unlike last Wednesday night no one was disagreeing too much with the team selection pre match, but in typical Saints fashion a great result is usually followed by an abysmal one, but every club has a bad day at the office sometimes.
Ralph Hasenhuttl changed the team again from the side that beat West Ham in the cup on Wednesday, no one was too disappointed pre match, but there were key players missing from the line up.
There was no Mohammed Salisu and Kyle Walker Peters was only fit enough for the bench, but these two weren't the only thing missing, we lacked the spirit and determination of the last months, we seemed to think that we could turn over Villa just by turning up.
But the home side were fired up with Danny Ings looking especially determined to put one over his home town side.
The writing was on the wall from the start, Saints knocked the ball around well in their usual manner, but the moment they lost it Villa were down our throats, they could have been 2-0 up before they scored the opener on 9 minutes and in the following half hour could easily have doubled or trebled their lead.
Fraser Forster making key saves on a number of one on ones and overall one of the few players who came out of the game with any credit.
As we hit the 44th minute we thought if we get to half time only one nil down we surely can't be as bad in the second half, but we couldn't even do that and were carved open again and we went into the break demoralised.
Yan Valery came on for Elyounoussi at half time and we seemed to switch to 3 at the back, but it didn't change much, initially we again knocked the ball around well, but we were destroyed in a blitz that saw Villa score twice in two minutes and with 36 minutes to go your feared for the scoreline.
With the game won Saints did get more of a grip on the game but that was perhaps because the home side were perhaps with the game won, taking their foot off the pedal.
So how did we lose so badly, a look at the statistics showed we had 62% possession, we had 11 attempts on target, only 3 less than Villa themselves, we even had 7 corners compared to their 4, but they had 9 of their 14 attempts on target and we had a pitiful 1.
The main issue was in the centre of defence, we missed the strength and reading of the game that Salisu brings to the side, time after time Villa were breaking quickly and our defenders could not seem to stop them, we were continually out of position and letting them turn us and run at us at will.
Yes the rest of the team have to take some of the blame for letting Villa break so fast, but our defence should really have coped better, without Fraser Forster it could have been much much more.
But every side has an off day and we have to make sure this is a one off and not the start of a bad run, it doesn't make us a bad side, we just didn't do the things that have propelled us up the table and got a little lazy.
We now have to pick ourselves up for the visit of Newcastle on Thursday and then Watford at the weekend, key in those games will be the return of Salisu and having Kyle Walker Peters 100%.
Credit to the Saints supporters who made the trip on Saturday, they flew the yellow & blue colours both in support of Ukraine & their team, but they were let down terribly with a poor performance.
To conclude, it was a bad day at the office, if you are Manchester City you don't have many, if you are a mid table team like Saints you have them a lot more often, it is now about making sure this doesn't become a losing streak and that we keep on pressing forward and hold our position in the table.
We have the squad to do that, but there will be days like these again this season, hopefully not too many.
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