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!
We are nowhere near to being a team to be frightened of, take a look at balls coming in, I’ve noticed defenders are lost to rise for the ball, could be a cricket score next half the way it’s going. I’m going against my predicting of scores, Villa 1- Southhampton 5 . It’s the way I see it .
better start second half 🙂 trez and grealish headers
Mauricio Pochettino anyone?
This is ridiculous.
They’re just playing straight through us in the middle.
What an utterly utterly gutless performance.
0-4
oh dear is getting worst.
the commentator saying that we arent pressing we are just its not good enough and soton are beating our press too easy.
Grealish flips one up and Mings heads.
You get the feeling it’s only a token gesture though.
1-4
Two players that haven’t turned up today ! Barkley, Mc Ginn, midfielders, writing this we scored, Mings still doesn’t hide the fact we are not playing for that shirt.
we scored we win the game lets end game see you next season lol
trez has been villa man of the match and he never started lol second half we played much better but i think that saints have took their foot off the pedal. but good to see that our players havent given up. be interesting if trez had scored one or two of his chances.
Normality is restored. Only consolation is I saved £14.95 and I couldn’t get a stream. Arsenal up next and suddenly we are in decline. Unfortunately Dean Smith has been outsmarted last two games and we only have a plan A.
Thankfully we got 12 points quickly which offers us a buffer from teams fighting relegation.
Watkins scores from a pen.
2-4
Ha.
Grealish shoots from longish range and beats McCarthy easily.
4-3 and it’s all over.
You just have to believe that things are not so bad after that second half. We should have won.
4 3 soton
i am happy we showed more second half and we never gave up. don’t be fooled saints strolled second half and villa did improve. losing by a goal put a false look at the score. saints were too good and we couldnt solve the problems they presented to us.
we are not a bad side, we just run into two teams who are totally settled on their systems and they outfoxed us. we will improve as we settle in our new players and we grow together.
who knows what would have happened if trez had converted one or two of his chances. he played well and showed smith he was unlucky to be dropped,
While Badger franticly writing the next post may I say that they won 3-0 first half, But we won 3-1 second half and had more shots on goal. Man of the match for me is their goalkeeper he save some blinders. Over to you Badger.
The reality is that after 4 games we were in a false position and to think we could do a ‘Leicester’ was a fantasy.
Mid table would be a good result this season so whilst disappointed, I’m not going to be that pessimistic.
I think we’ll do better against Arsenal but lack of quality in depth remains our biggest challenge this season.
well just watch the utd arsenal to check out our next opponents, i came away thinking i wished it was manure next they are so slow and ponderous. we would beat them with ease.
arsenal hard to judge against utd cause they were allowed to pass the ball without any pressure for much of the game. arsenal didnt create loads but thats cause utd were to negative and didnt over commit, arsenal looked good i suppose but we will test them more,