A vital win in which Saints seemed to do as much as they could to hand the game to Villa.
This was very much a game of two halves, a first half where Saints looked confident and strong and a second where we seemed unable to keep the ball or clear it properly resulting in increasing Villa pressure as they sensed blood and a fragile confidence, indeed one esteemed member of this site said to me when we met up after that if Villa had scored with even five minutes to go they would have won the game and he had a point.
To take the negatives first, Villa were indeed a poor side but what they did do was fight to the last whistle, whatever their problems are, fight and a willingness to chase everything isnt an issue and the longer the game went on the more we seemed to give the ball away and fail to clear it, in the second half this wasnt a sterling rearguard action with a solid defence holding firm, this was utter chaos with Villa putting the ball into our box and our defence failing to deal with it, our two central defenders barely won a header all game and their play on the ground was just as bad and I lost count the number of times they failed to deal with a ball and clear it effectively, Clyne at right back was so so at times including in the very last seconds of the game when he controlled the ball in his own penalty area, failed to clear and almost gave the game away, he could of course be excused to some degree as he is coming back from injury but Hooiveld and Yoshida can not have the same excuse, on the left though Luke Shaw was superb and even got forward a bit more than he has done in his career so far, he does need to add a decent cross to his armoury though.
In midfield Cork and Schneiderlin battled hard as they do, Jason Puncheon came alive when he got the ball, but sadly there is no end product to him, promising runs almost always seemed to come to nothing, in this game he treaded a fine line between being poor or being man of the match, I know that sounds a little contradictory but thats how I felt he played, when he had the ball he looked like he might do something explosive but didnt, when he didnt have the ball he looked like he wasnt working hard enough to get it back but Clyne got him out of a few accusing glances by winning the ball back at times.
Gaston Ramirez dissapeared in the second half, in the first he had been lively and shown a few promising touches, but in the second as Saint needed to work hard and dig in he didnt roll up his sleeves as hard as some of his teammates and the only surprise when he came off was that it wasnt ten minutes earlier, Nigel Adkins left this one a little late at a time when there were a few tired legs out there.
On the plus side, Artur Boruc was outstanding, not only did he make two or three outstanding saves when called upon, he dominated his six yard area, several times the ball pinged across our six yard box and just as you thought a Villa boot might get there, Boruc claimed the ball in a sea of flailing limbs, he caught everything with confidence and although I would prefer to see a keeper brought in in this transfer window, Boruc showed enough in this game to suggest that he might just be good enough if we dont buy in.
Luke Shaw was outstanding as I have said and was the only player in the back four who seemed able to clear the ball cleanly and not bring further pressure on us, but some seem to forget his tender age and the fact is that 17 year olds do not have the stamina that say a 20 year old would have, and in the final ten minutes he seemed to be feeling it, continually stretching his calves during breaks in play, but even when struggling to keep with the pace he looked a better act that his three co defenders.
Rickie Lambert worked his socks off, however too many times he was a yard off the game, however as he dropped deeper in the second half he did work some good balls with Jay Rodriguez and although this wasnt Rickie's best game, he was still effective in the fact that he had end product.
Jay Rodriguez has struggled to establish himself at Saints, in my opinion mainly as to the fans he isnt Rickie Lambert, but in this game Jay added something up front that Rickie doesnt have and that is pace, he ran the channels, he chased down defenders and at a time when Villa were dominating the game he provided a constant threat and an outlet to relieve the pressure, with respect to Rickie if he had been the loan striker in that second half we would have been in trouble because he isnt mobile enough, but with Rodriguez doing all the running, it enabled Rickie to sit deeper and battle in other areas, Jay Rodriguez contribution to this game should not be overlooked he covered a lot of ground.
But all that really matters in the end is that we came away with the three points, we won and we won ugly, but hopefully NIgel Adkins will be under no illusions that this was a great performance, this was one of those games you get every now and then when you get battered but inexplicably you come away with three points, Leeds last season for example, the worrying thing in my book is how we can look so confident and strong in one game and in the next start panicking or in this case strong in one half desperate in the next. We are still perhaps three good players in the right positions away from being a decent mid table side, sadly our problem is that we have put the icing on the cake before we have put in some of the layers and thats why ours is a fragile confidence.
Some will say Im being a little negative and that we won and they are right, but in these verdicts I try to tell it how it was and for those at Villa it was a long second half I can tell you, I went with around 6 or 7 others, some who come on this website and some who dont and to be honest I have written the match verdict as much from their opinions as my own, but to finish this was a great win, one that was very much needed given the results elsewhere, but it gives us breathing space and although we are still a long way from that finishing line, a couple of more wins will see us almost at the final bend.