Armstrong blasts Southampton to victory to increase Aston Villa’s woes
There were a couple of times in this game when a fidgeting Dean Smith took a hurried glance at his watch and, after a fifth successive Premier League defeat, the Aston Villa hierarchy must decide whether to stick or twist. Smith had spoken of a determination within the camp to put things right but the signs look increasingly ominous after another jarring display. Villa had grand plans of building on last season’s midtable finish with a drive towards the European places but, although unlikely, a painful defeat at Southampton means they could yet end the weekend in the relegation zone.
The grimaces on the faces of Christian Purslow, the Villa chief executive, and Johan Lange, the sporting director, as time ticked away in the second half said everything. Villa’s billionaire owners, Nassef Sawiris and Wes Edens, are expected to review Smith’s position in the coming days. Their cold ambition is what enticed Danny Ings, who missed the game with a hamstring problem, to swap Southampton for Villa in the summer. Villa were improved in the second half but it remains to be seen whether that awakening will prove sufficient for him to be in the dugout against Brighton after the international break.
“I’m a scrapper, always have been,” Smith said. “I think we have got a strong squad here. We are struggling a little bit at the minute with injuries. The five defeats seem to have come from nowhere. The lads left everything out there so you can certainly see their support and their want to leave everything out there. I’m very confident given time that we will turn it around. The players feel they are letting themselves down at the moment by not getting results.”
It was a disastrous start at St Mary’s for a Villa side that has now conceded 13 goals in their past five matches. Worse still, it is now 18 defeats in 35 matches so far this year. Smith had stressed the importance of his team rediscovering their defensive steel but with two minutes on the clock, the air still cooling from the pre-match pyrotechnics, that message went up in flames. James Ward-Prowse stormed in to beat Emiliano Buendía to a 50-50 on halfway and, after whooshing the ball forward, it dropped invitingly on the edge of the box for Adam Armstrong to smack in an exquisite half-volley.
It was a nightmarish start for Villa and they could count themselves fortunate that the referee, Andy Madley, decided against awarding Anwar El Ghazi a second yellow card on 25 minutes for a brainless foul on Southampton’s teenage phenomenon, Tino Livramento. A few minutes before the break El Ghazi averted another silly decision, jolting back to his feet after appearing to dive in the box. Ralph Hasenhüttl was riled but Southampton were surely more surprised that El Ghazi returned for the second half.
El Ghazi and Villa returned a different animal, creating a flurry of early chances to force Hasenhüttl into a reshuffle. Southampton, who passed up a couple of first-half chances to double their advantage, switched to a back five and had to suffer as Villa asked questions. But it was Emiliano Martínez who made the biggest interventions, clawing Che Adams’s looped header to safety having already pushed a stinging Ward-Prowse effort round a post. “We were very good defensively,” Hasenhüttl said. “One-nil wins are the nicest ones.”