Well, this should be easy, right?
Southampton are bottom of the league, after all, aren’t they?
Except we all know things are never that simple with the Villa.
The saints seem strangely inconsistent. Since Christmas they’ve beaten Palace and Everton away and Man city at home, but lost to Brighton and Forest at home and Fulham away.
So it’s hard to call how this game’s going to go.
Squad news and Emery has updated us that Ollie Watkins has trained well and will be available. Ludwig Augustinsson will also be available, as will Matt Cash, but reading between the lines, I suspect neither will feature. I don’t think the manager thinks much of Cash at all, but no doubt we’ll see. Jan Bednarek won’t be available because of his loan from Southampton and new signing Jhon Duran doesn’t have his visa yet, so is ineligible.
John McGinn isn’t quite ready yet, but should be okay for the Leicester game. I have a sneaky feeling that the Scot’s injury has been a little convenient, as it’s given the manager a chance to have a look at the side without actually having to drop him. He’s another who I suspect Emery might be willing to let go in the summer, if the right sort of offer comes in. I like McGinn, but he’s been poor for too long and it seems odd now that there was talk of him being worth £50 million not that long ago.
Danny Ings has gone and I think that’s a decent deal for the club, with talk of upto £15 million. When was the last time we got a decent fee for someone of his age? It makes a nice change and I actually think he’ll do quite well at West Ham, where I think Moyes will play more to suit him. If he doesn’t get the sack, of course.
Southampton then and they have no new issues.
Theo Walcott could be available after being out with a calf injury for six weeks and new signing Charly Alcaraz is looking for his first start.
The player to watch is James Ward-Prowse. He’s on form, having scored 4 in his last four prem games and is close to beating David Beckham’s record for direct free kicks.
While the Villa have loads of potential to let us down yet again, I feel we should have enough to beat them and I see goals. Emery has some astounding record for not drawing games and I think both teams are capable of scoring.
I’m going for a 2-1 win (he says, with fingers crossed).
UTV
Sometimes I feel I really shouldn’t predict a win.
It just feels like I’m setting myself up for disappointment.
Still, we have to remain confident as much as possible, I suppose
No no, I’d take the point here, to be honest. They look on good form and have been since they beat Man City 2-0, typical how they’ve got us now. If we were under our last two managers, this would have a 3-0 loss written all over it, but I’ll go 1-0 Villa or 1-1.
O ye of little faith!
I can’t say I blame you for being cautious though.
Excellent win.
Emery has gone something like 60 games since his last 0-0 draw; 0-0 it is then 🙂
Well no, not really. I’m with you Badger – I expect goals.
Southampton have a leaky defence, having let in 34 goals alongside Forest the most in the EPL and they’re not prolific scorers – 17 in all. They also have the worst home record having only one one at St Mary’s this season.
We have won the last two games against them but have only beaten them once at St Mary’s in the last six, losing four. In fact we have a poor record against Southampton over the last few years – I think we went 9 without a win.
We haven’t done well against teams below us this season so I’m also going for a draw although if we have aspiration of a top 10 finish this is a game we should be winning.
After my last prediction, I’m not going for anything but a draw at best 1-1 probably.
Ward-Prowse is almost bound to score, we simply never seem to know how to deal with his set-pieces (not that I think he’s much use at anything else, glad we didn’t go for him last summer).
Harder to say who’ll score for us: our goals-for is actually still pretty poor so far this season (22?), but if Bailey’s got his shooting boots on, most likely him, I’d guess.
VAR had us covered for JWP hahaha
Stop JWP, avoid free kicks 20 to 25 yards from goal.
I watched Saints v Everton, and could not believe where Pickford was standing for the free-kick, close to the far post. You could see from the angle of JWP run up that he was going over the wall and inside the near post. I hope Martinez saw the video.
Bum bum, you asked where I got the Naka story;
https://www.newsnow.co.uk/h/Sport/Football/Premier+League/Aston+Villa
Was also on Brum Live.
Why do we have two GK’s on the bench for today’s game?
Martinez; A Young, Konsa, Mings, Moreno; Luiz, Ramsey, Kamara; Buendia, Bailey, Watkins
Substitutes: Olsen, Chambers, Sinisalo, Dendoncker, Sanson, Coutinho, K Young, Cash, Revan
Two goalkeepers indeed.
How odd.
Wake me up if something happens.
Offside saves us from some shocking looking defending.
Some nice footy now.
Keep this up and we should score.
Droning on as I’m want to do ……..
Hmm, mostly mediocre with some nice bits inbetween.
We do pass it around really nicely at times.
We do Badger, that one move down the left was a sublime bit of footy.
The wanting and efforts going I can see it, we’re going to lose it ..,
Well this is a loads of rubbish…there for the taking and no one capable…subs now for Soton to go and win it….
JWP. As you warned guys…
Well, that was always coming.
JWP 1-0
The need for a striker showing , shit did you see that save . We should be 1-0 down . Ha as I’m saying we are .
DISALLOWED!!!!
Blatant shove in the back sees it disallowed.
Thank god for that.
TV pundits said it wasn’t much of a shove. The Saints player actually kicked Ramsay in the calf as well so I think it might have been given for that.
I’ve got a feeling we could snatch this now…
We’ll need to step it up though.
Get in there
WATKINS!!!
Yes, Watkins!
1-0
Bloody hell…Another VAR check…GIVEN! one up! 🙂
Another 3 point! 3rd away win on the trot!
WHOOOOO!!!!!!
That was a mostly poor game, but a great win.
You can’t argue with results and we got yet another one.
More and more, it just reinforces how poor Gerrard was.