So it’s another Sunday and another PPV game which has rightly wound many a Villa fan up, because it’s the third of four games that will have to be paid for on top of any existing Sky or BT subscription.
If anyone is paying these charges on top of a subscription, I can only say fair play to you, but I won’t.
Many fans have said the same and donated money to charities instead, with the latest total I’ve heard being £300,000. Now that deefinitely is fair play.
Given the criticism the PPV scheme has received it’ll be interesting to see what happens when this first period (which I believe is one month) is up. Seeing as the EFL are charging £10 a game, it’s hard to see how the EPL charges can be any lower than that, especially when the reasoning is that the prem is a better product.
I’d be calling for all the PPV charges to be dropped, but I suspect many of the EFL clubs would be relying on this money.
Even so, the important point here is that if we go down this PPV route, it’s only going to be good for the massive clubs and incredibly bad for the smaller clubs. I’ve picked them totally at random, but how many people are likely to tune in to a Rotherham game for example?
The broadcasters love the idea of PPV, as they’ll be able to milk the bigger club’s audiences even more over time. But we can’t let them get away with this, in my opinion.
The bad news is that if you go down the Vola sports route of watching the PPV games, you may have noticed that the company running the app has closed it down. It’s been replaced with another, almost identical app which certainly looks like an updated version of Vola. It’s called Sports live and is working, except it’s not showing any links to games.
I’m sure this will be sorted in the next couple of days, but doubt it’ll be up and running today.
I’d better talk about the game, which is awkward, because I don’t know what to think.
They’re a strange side, Southampton. Last season, their away form was Champions league standard.
Yet their home form was more like Championship standard. Which means it’ll be slightly interesting to see how their season pans out without any crowds to affect anything. Not that I really care, as long as we beat them.
Squad wise, both clubs are as they have been and the only new thing is that they have Walcott available after he was out last week.
I watched Southampton’s game against Everton and can’t say I was impressed. In fact I was left wondering why the Blues were riding so high in the league, as I didn’t think they were very good at all.
Which brings us to our position.
We’ve done well, but made Bamford look like Messi when we played Leeds.
I’ve spoken a few times about how our defence isn’t good as is sometimes made out and I’m sure Ings will be hoping we don’t get to grips with him, similar to Bamford.
I see this game as a very good demonstrator of our credentials this season and if we’re genuinely going to be, not quite challenging, but comfortable, we need to be winning this kind of game.
I think we have the tools to win, but the midfield will need to get far more involved and bring Watkins into the game more.
Fortunately Southampton don’t play anywhere nearly as intensely as Leeds, but they can break quickly and will put us under pressure.
A score draw looks favourite to me, but I think I could say that about most games.
I’m going to go for a win for us though, purely because it seems that many of the pundits are going for Southampton to win.
2-1, it is and fingers crossed.
UTV!
Tough game I think, but aren’t they all?
I’ll post a link if I find a decent stream, but here’s the one I’m looking at;
https://www.totalsportek.com/southampton/
The second one down in that link is working fine for me atm.
Traore is in for Trezeguet and Walcott is in for Southampton.
Aston Villa
Martinez, Cash, Konsa, Mings, Targett, Traore, Luiz, McGinn, Grealish, Barkley, Watkins.
Subs: Steer, Engels, Elmohamady, Hourihane, Nakamba, Trezeguet, Davis.
just seen the team dropping trez is tough call he received heavy criticism for not tracking back. but to be fair thats not his role or jacks on opposite side, Traore will track back far less than trez did. that shows you that is not there roles but to occupy their opposition back line from playing square at the back.
what will be interesting is soton always send their full backs forward as did leeds, so will jack and traore only track them back so far as they normally do or all the way now having watched leeds exploit us.
soton are decent but their weakest link is defence. so we should attack them, but soton best attributes is quick counters so catch 22. sets up a good match. whats the score fook knows i will go for another defeat, just cause leeds exposed lots of errors tracking players, leeds sent 10 players forward soton are not that adventurous, but if your man does counter i hope our defenders and attackers track them or we will suffer again.
hope iam wrong villa 2 soton 3
You can’t see Traore tracking back much, as you say. That’s not his game and if you’re going to pick one for that role, it’s Trez, because of his workrate, simple.
You’d have to think we’re going to attack them.
whats what i mean. trez and grealish role was to occupy the opposition defence for our pressing high with watkins, tracking back for them was about half way or just inside our half, but thats how leeds exploited us they know our system
soton will try to burst their full backs forward and create a similar overlap grealish and traore are much better going forwards not tracking back deep, expect mcgin and luiz to filter across
The Sports Live app is layer 1. I am not going to name the second layer it leads to – it should be obvious. The second layer is working.
I’m interested to see if Traore plays on the right wing, because I think he is a centre-forward, and Oliie Watkins might do better job on the right.
We will win if we take our early chances, if we concede first, we are not likely to come back and win.
Interesting.
All I’m seeing is the words “bye bye”.
Can you give me the link to where you downloaded the app?
Actually, I don’t think we’re talking about the same thing, but the link would be nice.
That’s pathetic.
0-1
Already 🙁
Looks off on the VAR and it is.
Let’s hope that’s a lesson.
we started slow , but now villa are linking up well going forwards, got to watch them when they turn the ball over they are lightening quick countering
bad marking at the free kick 🙁
Dear, dear 🙁
Now it’s 0-1
Fuck sake we’ve lost this already. 2 stupid needless free kicks given away just like we were doing last year.
Game over.
Looks like we all got carried away with our start, including the players.
2 nil nice free kick. we are in trouble here, head might drop and this could be a big defeat, we will get stretched now, over commit and get countered
Stats favour Southampton. They’ve won the last three against us and are unbeaten in 5 games at VP.
Can never beat the stats.
So our start flattered to deceive.
Unbelievable.
0-3.
We’ve been horrendously poor.
i need to change my prediction 3 2 i mean 2 5 soton
45 minutes in which McGinn’s name was not mentioned once. In fact I did not see him touch the ball.
I was fuming at Cash for handling, but we had no defenders anywhere near, so I don’t blame him for it.
I can’t put my finger on why we’re so bad, but it’s like watching a team I’ve knocked up facing Southampton.
Are our mids actually playing today?
we are so bas cause soton are making us look bad like leeds did. we are a work in progress soton and leeds have their systems and they played um perfectly. we can not cope with them sadly
basically we are not in the same class as teams like soton, we can not live with their movement and countering, they haven’t even been at their best,they are only in first or second gear, just hope they don’t stretch their legs in second half or we will be hit for 5 or 6.
as for us we need to damage limitations, their first goal from the crossed free kick we are dog shit, marking their best header and tallest player with mcginn. we can not live with their movement off the ball and we were same against leeds, just close this game out villa and do not attempt to get in this game or it will certainly get worst