Premier League Match 27 - Aston Villa 4 Southampton 0

 

Fraser Makes His 75th Save of the Game

Saints go to Villa Park today to take on Champions League chasing Aston Villa. Villa, managed by Villa fan Dean Smith and inspired by summer signing Danny Ings, have already won the Carabao Cup this season and are through to the 6th Round of the FA Cup and have been in and around the top for all season.

Hang on a minute, I’ll get out of the time machine that transported me back to August 2021 and deal with the reality.

Saints go to Villa Park to take on underachieving Aston Villa. Villa, managed by Steven Gerrard, who replaced Dean Smith after he’d lost 5 in a row, culminating with a defeat away at today’s opponents Southampton.  In truth, they don’t have a lot to play for this season. Summer signing Danny Ings has not provided the goals that were needed for them to do any better than they did last year.

There was an initial new manager bounce under Steven Gerrard, helped by the transfer window in which they signed Philippe Coutinho who of course was a brilliant player at Liverpool, when Gerrard was still playing.  That was a while ago now and since then Coutinho has largely been a fringe player at Barcelona and out on loan at Bayern Munich. Villa have looked decent in some games when the likes of Emi Buendia, Coutinho or Ollie Watkins have shone, but basically they’ve been very inconsistent, hence their lower mid-table league position. If Saints manage to finish above them this season, it would send another message to members of our current squad that the grass is not always greener in terms of football, even though the bank account will be considerably greener. It’s the age-old question? Do you want to be the best player you can be or do you want to be the richest player you can be?

Martin Semmens gave an interview recently where he talked about succession planning for when Ralph moves on and he mentioned that one of the managers they would’ve been looking at he is newly into the Premier League and probably out of our reach now. Basically, that fell down to a choice of three between Frank Lampard, Thomas Frank and Steven Gerrard.  I don’t think that Thomas Frank would be out of our reach and neither Lampard or Gerard will be employed by the current clubs if they don’t turn around the massive underachievement going on at Everton and Aston Villa respectively.

After the remarkable win against West Ham in mid-week, there are a couple of question marks against the fitness of KWP and Mohamed Salisu, out of the players who have been in the Premier League starting 11 recently. It transpired that neither were playing today so Jack Stephens steps in and KWP has been left on the bench with Perraud starting. Gerrard has obviously got a few problems of his own because Villa’s back four looks incredibly ropey with Matty Handball Cash, Tyrone Mings, Ashley Young and Calum fucking Chambers in the line-up.  I’ve said all I’ve got to say about Calum Chambers to be honest but how on earth he has got a move to another semi-decent club where he’s mostly going to be a substitute is absolutely beyond me. Ashley Young’s presence means that little shit Lucas Digne is not around. Little shit he might be but he is a threat going forward. Danny Ings has chosen this game not to be injured and he partners Ollie Watkins who has been suffering from second season syndrome. Nothing to fear in that Villa line-up. If we play well, we have a real chance and the thought of Armando and Che against that back four is an appetising one.

We make a decent start without creating anything but it’s an even game with neither side creating anything.  On 9 minutes Villa decide to create something and shit.  Ings comes short away from Bednarek who doesn’t go with him and plays the ball round the corner in to Watkins, who turns past Stephens who over-commits himself.  Watkins is left with a simple task to clip it past Forster into the net. Great fucking start and the first examination of our Salisu-free centre back pairing ends with us 1-0 down.

Saints respond in decent fashion and create a chance as Broja nicks the ball off of the dopey Mings, bursts past Mings and Young before pulling it back to Armstrong, who makes space for himself, before curling a left-footed effort about a foot wide of the far post.  Would have been nice to have an instant response but not to be.  It’s a sign that we can get at Villa’s somewhat makeshift defence as well though.

Any decent attacking play is going to be made irrelevant by our defending when not in possession if we don’t sort it out.  We are all over the place defensively.  I mean absolutely fucking wide open and it’s so easy for Villa to get to the edge of our box and still be in possession.  A clearance from the back goes to Watkins who walks off of Stephens, who isn’t tight enough and therefore making it easy for him.  Watkins finds Coutinho-Unmarked who has lost Romeu, picks up the return pass and he’s clean through again.  This time, Fraser sticks out of big size 15 and blocks the shot. We are getting absolutely nowhere near them in midfield or in defence when they’ve got the ball.  

Saints are still a threat though, with Armstrong having a shot blocked from a central position and via Romeu, the ball finds its way out to Tino on the right.  A first time cross into a good are and Adams climbs to reach it but can only head it on the stretch, over Martinez and narrowly over the bar.

If you compare how dangerous each side looks when they attack, Villa look the much more threatening though and as if to emphasise the point, Cash gets to the line really easily, the cross is half cleared to the Coutinho-Unmarked, who absolutely lashes it and it only goes about a foot wide of the far post.

Seconds later and Watkins easily spins past Livramento and Fraser is called into action again to block Coutinho’s shot, which is from 10 yards, completely unmarked.  Any hope of getting to half time just the one down and being able to change things then goes to shit and the final piss-take of the half is that when the inevitable second goal does actually come, it’s courtesy of the vision of Calum fucking Chambers as he plays a ridiculous ball over the Saints defence with the outside of his right foot to meet the run of Coutinho-Unmarked at the back post.  He slides it across where Douglas Luiz cannot miss. We look for the linesman‘s flag and there isn’t one and then we hope that VAR will save us but it doesn’t. 2-0 and no more than Villa deserve.

With just a couple of minutes to go to half time, we try and throw in another one.  Long ball, Watkins easily wins a header against Bednarek, flicks it on and there is no covering player and Coutinho-Unmarked is clean through against Fraser.  I shut my eyes and wait for the inevitable but somehow he puts it wide with our centre-backs breathing from 10 yards away clearly putting him off.

Half time. What a load of shit that was.  Ralph has to do something, so decides that the anonymous Elyounoussi should be removed and replaced with Yan Valery. This of course means us going to three at the back with Perraud and Livramento pushed up the wings. It will be interesting to see with this gives us anymore of a foothold in the game.  Get one back and we may well have a chance.

Needless to say, it didn’t fucking happen as virtually from Villa’s first attack they win a free kick out on the right, we half clear the ball in amongst McGinn having his usual dive but it finds Coutinho in the middle of the penalty area and he works himself an opening before crashing it through a forest of legs to make it 3-0. Game over. Fuck off.

Can it get worse? Oh yes it surely can – Ings hasn’t scored yet.  Another fluent passing move without us getting near them sees him crash a shot which is well saved by Fraser but a few minutes later, Cash gets to the by-line totally unhindered by anyone and pulls it back. Bednarek is ball watching not marking anybody and he’s not alone but Danny Ings is all alone and meets it first time to side foot it past Forster. A typical finish by Ings. To be fair, he doesn’t celebrate too much which is small consolation for the fact that we are getting absolutely smashed here.  We have 4 players nearby – a square of Bednarek, Stephens, Romeu and JWP and Ings is stood in the middle of them, in loads of space – Dogshit.

There is a chance to make it 4-1 with Che Adams fastening onto Livramento’s lovely through ball but as he comes in on the angle towards Martinez, he does the right thing and smashes it across him but Martinez gets a glove on it and it loops up and over the bar. We are never going to score today.

For the last 25 minutes nothing really happens.  Villa are content to keep us passing the ball around in front of them and we haven’t got it in us to create anything.  There’s a bit of an issue with Broja and Young which looks like nothing and it all gets a bit fractious but that’s just frustration from us because we’ve been shit.  Fraser has to get off his line sharply to prevent another certain goal from Buendia and that’s it.  Crap.

Well, what a wet fart of a performance that was. Outplayed, outfought and outworked. It is very rare that happens with us so we have to write it off as a bad day at the office.  Timid, passive, bollocks.

It wasn’t just the defence that was bad, but your defence sets the tone for the rest of the team. The partnership between Stephens and Bednarek never works and didn’t work today. The last time we played it was in the 3-0 defeat at Arsenal.  Both of them are too passive and with Salisu missing, we had no defending on the front foot. Bednarek seems to take his cue from his centre back partner.  When Salisu plays, Bednarek defends aggressively and gets tight to strikers.  When Stephens plays, instead of leading the way, he copies Stephens and plays on the back foot.  So, we stood off and allowed Villa to pass the ball into the feet of the strikers and cause us endless problems. The amount of times that Ings dropped deep into a space and absolutely no one went with him was ridiculous in that first half. The problems were added to by the fact that both Romeu and JWP had an off day and were largely bypassed in that first half, neither of them getting close to Coutinho-Unmarked who basically ran the game.  Sure, he’s a great player and great at finding space but we didn’t lay a tackle on him all game.  Nor did we lay a tackle on the snake Ings.  If I'm a centre back playing against an injury prone striker who used to play for us - I'm putting a tackle in - not Stephens or Bednarek though.

Coutinho-Unmarked.  Saints Players Out of Shot

Neither Armstrong or Elyounoussi had any impact in a defensive sense either and we just looked like we were going to concede every time Villa had the ball. The fact that we didn’t was down to the goalkeeper with Fraser Forster standing tall whilst everybody else fell away. It could’ve been 4-0 at half-time and there won’t be anyone out there who doesn’t think that Fraser was our best player, keeping the score down to a respectable level.  If we have a better goalkeeper lined up to be No 1 next season, he's going to have to be amazing.

The much-anticipated duel between their defence and our attack was a damp squib.  Adams worked hard for no reward and Broja had one of those games where he just wasn’t involved.  Nothing Stuart Armstrong tried really worked, though he was unlucky with that left footed effort in the first half that went narrowly wide.  Elyounoussi was anonymous and it was no surprise that he was hooked at half time.

Without naming players individually, Ralph seemed to be coming to the same conclusion that I did that there “was a problem with the duels in the back line in the first half”.  That points directly at the central defenders. If Salisu is missing for any further games then another solution has to be found.  Yan Valery has not been trusted to start a Premier League game as yet but he is more aggressive into the tackle than the two who played today so maybe that will be the way we go.  That will probably give us more problems aerially from set pieces and the like but with Lyanco still miles away from being fit, we need to hope that Salisu will be back soon.  In an ideal world, he be back for the rearranged game against Newcastle on Thursday night.  It’s a game that we need to win to get back on track and also because of the stunt Newcastle pulled to get the game called off on the original date. Predictably, they have been a lot better since the transfer window so that is going to be a much tougher game than it would’ve been back in December.  It is what it is though.

As for Villa, they were decent it has to be said and Gerrard got his tactics right and gave us problems. To be honest, I don’t think it would’ve mattered what tactics were employed against us today as we were just not on it, but credit where it’s due. Calum Chambers played a major part in one of the Villa goals and Danny Ings got a goal. It truly was one of those days.

The unbeaten run was always going to come to an end at some point and in some ways, it’s not surprising that we got a bit of a stuffing. We have to respond to this in the same way we responded to the Wolves defeat and start another run, which we are perfectly capable of if we get back to doing the good things that we’ve been doing the last few weeks.  It was nice to be able to strut around for a couple of days shouting “we are fucking massive“.  Maybe the players believed it a bit as well.  As we all know, we are not fucking massive and we will have days like this occasionally.