Bad boy Barkley shows his bite
But Ings is denied so cruelly late on
GOOD timing all round, really. Good for Ross Barkley in terms of his run into the area and across his manager’s eyeline, and good for Aston Villa as they ended a mildly troubling streak of results away from home.
What might have been a fourth straight loss on the road was instead a win that carried Villa back up into the thinner air, and within that climb came a goal from Barkley which will help his own interests.
It is no great secret that his loan from Chelsea has had its tricky moments, through a combination of an iffy hamstring and some iffier decisions around Covid regulations.
It also won’t have been lost on him that £14million has just been spent on a versatile midfielder in Morgan Sanson.
A fine moment to get a goal, then. And a good goal it was, too, both in its creation from Jack Grealish — a ninth assist of the season — and in Barkley’s headed execution.
For Villa, it injects momentum back into an impressive season that had perhaps started to get a little sticky, after one win in five.
For Southampton and Ralph Hasenhuttl, there is only the frustration of knowing they racked up 20 shots to Villa’s nine and yet emerged with a deteriorating record of one win from eight league games. Their strong campaign needs another burst of speed.
Hasenhuttl made three changes to the side beaten by Arsenal on Tuesday.
Ryan Bertrand was clear from suspension and took his spot on the left of the back four, while Oriol Romeu and Nathan Redmond also returned, with the latter in a less familiar stationing alongside Danny Ings in attack. Jake Vokins, Yan Valery and Che Adams stepped out.
Smith retained the same personnel who created 18 chances in defeat at Burnley on Wednesday and named Sanson on the bench.
On paper, the match-up offered exciting possibilities for Villa, if only for the vulnerability that appeared to exist at right-back for Southampton. With Kyle WalkerPeters still injured, James WardProwse was relocated away from his sphere of excellence in midfield and directly into the path of the leftsided tag team of Grealish and Matt Targett — not an easy assignment, all things considered.
The first attack of the night came down that flank, when Villa’s Ollie Watkins pulled a shot across goal and wide, before the VAR, Mike Dean, checked f or a possible penalty at the other end after Matthew Cash handled a Stuart Armstrong shot.
It clearly struck Cash’s arm but owing the rolling upgrades to the rule, nothing was given because the ball had been diverted onto the arm via Cash’s thigh. Staff and subs on either side of the tunnel had little idea what was going on, of course, because this is football in 2021.
A moment later Bertrand whipped a cross in front of the Villa goal and a fraction out of reach of multiple team- mates, and from the right Theo Walcott also had a dangerous delivery cut out by Cash.
Villa, as is their way, were pushing with limited success to get forward, and particularly to isolate Grealish against Ward-Prowse, and while the latter was generally solid, his positioning will perhaps stand as one of the factors in how Southampton came to concede the opening goal against the run of play.
Certainly he appeared to be caught out by the flight of a high ball sent up the line by Targett which dropped behind him into Grealish’s path.
From there, the greater error was that Barkley was allowed a free header in response to Grealish’s excellent cross. A good finish, but who was tracking Barkley?
Hasenhuttl opted against making changes at the break, and quickly Southampton resumed their control of possession.
Redmond had a shot blocked by Tyrone Mings’ backside and WardProwse put a dangerously-placed free- kick i nto the wall, before Moussa Djenepo and Adams were brought into the attack.
Southampton were getting tetchy and it threatened to boil over when the referee interrupted a promising attack after Villa’s Douglas Luiz went down after a marginal collision with team-mate John McGinn.
Emiliano Martinez denied Jan Bednarek. When Ings had a goal disallowed in stoppage time for a desperately tight offside call, Smith had the look of a man who knew it was a lucky night.
SOUTHAMPTON ( 4- 4-2): McCarthy 6.5; Ward-Prowse 6, Bednarek 7, Stephens 5.5, Bertrand 6; Walcott 6 (Adams 64min, 6), Romeu 6.5 (Jankewitz 90), Diallo 6 (Djenepo 59, 6), Armstrong 6.5; Redmond 6, Ings 6. Booked: Ward-Prowse. Subs (not used): Forster, Long, Valery, Ramsay, N’Lundulu, Watts.
ASTON VILLA (4-2-3-1): Martinez 8; Cash 7, Konsa 7, Mings 6.5, Targett 7; McGinn 7, Luiz 6.5; Traore 6, Barkley 7 (Nakamba 90), Grealish 7.5; Watkins 6.5. Subs ( not used): Heaton, Taylor, Trezeguet, El Ghazi, Engels, Sanson, El Mohamady, Davis.
Referee: L Mason (Lancashire) 6.5.