Southampton V Aston Villa The Verdict

It was ultimately disappointment for Saints in a game where they really should have at least got a point in, but there were some plus points, the spirit was still there and Villa needed their keeper to make a couple of decent saves to keep a clean sheet.

There wasn't much argument when the Saints line up was announced at 2pm, for me the only change I would have made would have been starting Orsic instead of Samuel Edozie.

Edozie is undoubtably a talent, the past few games have seen some great runs from him, but there has been little end product so far, I am sure there will be, but in the meantime we should be using him off the bench as an impact player rather than in the starting line up.

When you have a relegation fight on your hands you need experience and Mislav Orsic has experience at the highest level, he has been here now for two Premier League games, he has played 6 minutes of Premier League football.

I cannot understand that and I cannot understand why he only played 6 minutes against Villa when we were initially chasing a goal and then an equaliser.

This is not a major criticism of Nathan Jones, as mentioned this would have been the only real change from my starting line up.

This was always going to be a scrappy game, but in the main we matched the visitors, indeed most of their chances seemed to come from errors from our own players, Gavin Bazunu's poor clearance handing them a decent chance that luckily they fired straight at him, being a good example.

Saints fans thought their team had gone ahead twice, the first effort in the first half saw Che Adams put the ball home although there was some question whether another player had been the one flagged for putting the ball home on the line.

Subsequent TV pictures showed that Adams himself was off side as the ball was played through.

St Mary's erupted in the second half as James Ward Prowse fired home with a shot that took a deflection and looped over the keeper, but again it was VAR that decided the matter, most thought that the decision was harsh, Elyounoussi barely touched their man it seemed, but again looking at TV replays closer showed that Elyounoussi had actually stood on Ramsey's ankle, it may well have been an accident and not deliberate but it was still a foul.

We paid the price on 77 minutes, a cheap free kick given away saw a curing ball put into our box, Ollie Watkins lost his man and had a free header, it was from a similar position that Everton scored last week, aside from where the cross was delivered from it was a carbon copy.

Although the starting line up was a good one, I have to take some issue with the substitutions, Romeo Lavia going off seems to be par for the course on 60 minutes, clearly he is not ready to go much longer, but my worry here is we are not extending his time on the pitch game by game, a few minutes longer at a time.

This was part of a triple substitution, Edozie rightly going off alongside Che Adams.

Would I have bought these two off alongside Lavia, the answer is probably yes, but I was disappointed to see Elyounoussi, Perraud and to a lesser extent Sekpu Mara brought on at this time.

In some respect Mara & Elyounoussi are attacking players, but why take off an attacking player in Edozie and then bring on a left back.

My big disappointment in this game was the fact that we brought on Orsic for only 6 minutes and Charly Alcatraz didn't even get on the pitch.

The former has just returned from a World Cup in which he helped his team to 3rd place and the latter came on at Everton a week earlier and had a good 30 minutes.

It was far too late to bring on Orsic on 84 minutes, that should have been done immediately after Villa had scored and given him a little more time to help try and save the game.

We have made these two signings for a reason, so why aren't we using them !

But having analysed the substitutions and where we went wrong, although this game was a disappointment, there were plus sides, firstly that the team spirit is there and hopefully that will carry us though, secondly we now seem to be able to play the systems that Nathan Jones wants, the players have bought in to it.

We created chances, but we have to start taking them, that is my main worry, we still need a striker who can score goals like shelling peas, Adams, Adam Armstrong & Sekou Mara all have their own merits, but they are not natural goalscorers, we need one of those.

A draw in this game would have lifted us off the bottom, a win would have taken us into 16th place and that would have been a phycological blow to our rivals.

There is a long way to go in this season, it is far from over, but we cannot afford to keep losing games to teams like Aston Villa, who with respect to them are now in a transitionary period and looking to next season at the moment.

On a reality check note, if we had won this a 4th game in a row, would we win 5 as we need to on Tuesday night ? the odds of probability say not !

Now we have reset the games won clock we can start another little run commencing with the visit of Newcastle in the Carabao Cup, it's straw clutching perhaps, but that is what football fans do, that's why we have lucky charms and matchday rituals, we all know they count for nothing on the pitch, but it just feels like it sometimes.

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