For European chasing Aston Villa, who ended their eight-match winless run in midweek, hosting bottom-of-the-table Southampton was a perfect chance to back up their Brentford victory.
But they seemed to pick up where they’d left off prior to that win today, with Southampton missing a great chance to take the lead when Ryan Manning skewed wide from Kyle Walker-Peters’ cutback.
Another big chance soon followed for the visitors when former Villa man Cameron Archer won the ball high up the pitch, combined with Flynn Downes to open up a clear sighting of goal, but a last-ditch Ezri Konsa block denied what looked to be a certain goal.
Russell Martin’s men found out the hard way that when you don’t take chances in this league, you get punished, when midway through the first half, Jhon Durán, handed a rare start, out-muscled the Saints defence and fired home the opener.
Villa never truly put their foot to the floor in search of a second goal, something Unai Emery could certainly have done with, knowing they have a huge UEFA Champions League game against RB Leipzig to come in midweek.
With that in mind then, he’ll have been disheartened to see Leon Bailey go down with an injury just before the hour mark.
Emery shuffled his pack with a quadruple sub shortly before the hour mark, evidently with midweek in mind, but his changes had little effect on this game, as Villa’s shortcomings continued to leave the door open for the visitors.
Breaking through that door never really appeared likely for Southampton, who are abundantly lacking in quality at this level, and that lack of guile in the final third ultimately proved to be their undoing yet again today, and in truth, they didn’t come remotely close to equalising.
Villa should’ve warped the game up three minutes from time when Ollie Watkins put the ball on a plate for Ross Barkley six yards from goal, but a heroic Nathan Wood block handed the Saints a lifeline.
It certainly wasn’t the prettiest Premier League game you’re likely to see this season, but Villa won’t mind as they were untroubled in seeing out a fifth win ‘to nil’ from the last six H2Hs against Southampton.
Yet another loss leaves a miserable Saints side rooted to the foot of the table, eight points adrift of safety at such an early stage.