Aston Villa travel to St Mary’s this Wednesday to face a strong Southampton side. Southampton are currently the surprise of the season with the team sitting in seventh place in the table. It’s been a much improved campaign for the Saints, last season Southampton were in a relegation battle, today they are chasing a spot in Europe. Southampton’s current success is similar to Aston Villa back when Martin O’Neill was in charge of the Villains.
Southampton have lost there last two games to Arsenal and Chelsea, so they should be fired up this evening in an effort to gain some much needed points. Aston Villa have tied their last two games, once coming behind against West Brom to tie 2-2 and most recently a very disappointing draw against last place Sunderland. Aston Villa have been a much better side away and this game could prove to be a little more comfortable.
Mauricio Pochettino: “We don’t have time to dwell on our two consecutive defeats because we are only thinking about tomorrow’s game. We have lost on two very difficult grounds at Arsenal and Chelsea, so now we will try to impose our values and get the win over Aston Villa. I am expecting a physical game. Aston Villa are a strong side and very good on the counter-attack, especially away from home.”
Paul Lambert: “We are 11th and there are some big clubs below us. The crazy thing is we’re just five points off Tottenham, who are regarded as one of the ‘big ones’. The game on Saturday wasn’t great entertainment, put it that way. And we were the home team. But you’ve got to have a bit of realism.”
Team News:
Southampton are without number 1 keeper Artur Boruc who broke his hand last weekend. Additionally, back up keeper Kelvin Davies is also out injured so Pochettino will have to call up third keeper Paulo Gazzaniga. Morgan Schneiderlin has picked up a groin injury and trio Gaston Ramirez, Danny Fox and Guly do Prado are also unavailable.
Lambert will assess the fitness of Austrian striker Andreas Weimann after the forward experienced a tight hamstring injury. Paul Lambert has no other fresh injury concerns.
Match Facts:
Rickie Lambert scored three goals in the two Barclays Premier League meetings with Aston Villa last season.
Aston Villa have drawn the most away matches in Premier League history (129) including the last three in a row.
The Saints have lost just one of their last 11 Premier League games at St Mary’s (W6 D4 L1), including winning the last four in a row.
Mauricio Pochettino’s side have conceded just one goal in their last five Premier League home matches.
In Villa last 10 Premier League games they have either kept a clean sheet (five times) or conceded exactly two goals (five times)
Predicted Lineups:
Gazzaniga
Clyne-Lovren-Fonte-Shaw
Wanyama-S. Davies
Llana-Osvaldo-Rodriguez
Lambert
Agbonlahor-Kozak-Albrighton
Delph-Westwood-El Ahmadi
Luna-Clark-Vlaar-Bacuna
Guzan
Southampton 1-1 Aston Villa
guts~y performance 🙂 iam happy, hope vlaar isn’t long out ~ goals from midfielder again well deserved delph 🙂 roll on Fulham
Yep and showed Benteke he’s not quite as important as he thinks it is lol
Well done lads..and for all those harping on about possesion..that means fuck all…..here is the only stat that matters..Saints 2 Villa 3…
Yep it’s goals that win matches not possession. And we showed Benteke that he’s not as imp as he thinks he is.
I’m having a problem lads, I don’t want to support Villa anymore. I thinks it’s affecting me mentally. Any other teams you can suggest?
You could move across the city mate their looking for a supporter.
I couldn’t give a fuck how we won, it’s 3pts that’ll do nicely.
Wow. Fair play that is a great 3 points. You can’t fault the effort/determination. A couple of hard fought wins maybe the confidence will improve enough to play some decent football.
Great win!! Really surprised, thought we were going to throw it a away once vlaar had gone off!! Also it would be great to see kozac playing with 2 out and out wingers whipping in crosses for him to feed off. Was getting really sick of the constant hoof ball that was just coming back at us time and time again but a really good win fair play it worked
Maybe were a better team without Benteke worth a debate at some point
Great win. Shows we can score away from home with ease. All three goals were excellent stuff. Vlaar were badly missed second half, hopefully he will be fit soon. Once again a midfielder scores and that’s so important. 3 pts against Fulham and we could speak about a nice run who could last a little bit longer.
Fecking hell… ooohahh showing positivity.. lol
Performance wasn’t good but you can’t knock the spirit or the players playing for the manager..
You add Barry McCarthy and Lukaku to our team and we would be higher up… we are not far away.. it’s down to you Lerner…
Yep I’m always positive away from home and could see us winning there. We do ok at the good teams but saints are in free fall IMO so we played them at the right time.
OOh aah.. i think saints will be fine.. they lost to Arsenal and Chelsea.. in both games they played well…
Yep they will finish comfortably in mid table as will we by the looks of things
great win guys, really didn’t expect it, Southampton had lost their last 2 but that was against Chelsea and arsenal away, they’d won their last 4 home games on the bounce!
shouldn’t be underestimated what a good result that was.
possession stats were shocking but 2-3 is the main stat.
really pleased for the goal scorers, always a pleasure to see gabby score, he was never gonna pass that ball was he, eyes for goal, fair play. great to see kozack score again, 1st decent cross and he’s on it, we and kozac need more of that delivery if he’s playing.
and delph, well what can you say, even better than westwood in last week, great strike and well deserved.
Testing