If Aston Villa play like this against Manchester City at Wembley next time out, an occasion to celebrate threatens to be a chastening experience. Eventually, in second-half stoppage-time, Southampton put Villa out of their misery as Stuart Armstorng swept the ball into an empty goal to build on Shane Long’s early strike. Dean Smith’s side remain embroiled in a relegation fight while Southampton can finally feel better about themselves after moving 10 points clear of the bottom three. This represented Villa’s ninth defeat in their past 12 matches and they were fortunate the scoreline was not bigger.
It took only eight minutes for Southampton to breach the worst defence in the division, with Moussa Djenepo beating Ezri Konsa to the byline before cleverly hooking a cross towards the front post with the outside of his right foot. Long was lurking and managed to steady himself to instinctively divert the ball beyond Pepe Reina with the top of his thigh. That was the start of things to come, with Southampton continuing to pepper a frail Villa defence throughout a stop-start first half, with prolonged stoppages owing to head injuries to Djenepo and Anwar El Ghazi, who was replaced by Trezeguet.
Written by Ben Fisher at St Mary’s Stadium
This news first appeared on https://www.theguardian.com/football/2020/feb/22/southampton-aston-villa-premier-league-match-report under the title “Shane Long’s early Southampton effort increases pressure on Aston Villa”. Bolchha Nepal is not responsible or affiliated towards the opinion expressed in this news article.
