Aston Villa lost today, but we deserved it. We were sloppy and we never really went for it. We played with a very playable Benteke, apart from at corners where he was unplayable and a very fortunate Darren Bent, but we were shocking.
We gave the ball away too much. We hit long too much. We allowed Southampton too much space and when we were chasing the game, we swapped a left back for a left back and took off Bannan for Gabby, which ultimately gave the game to Southampton.
Hopefully just an off day
I'm not sure why we were poor today, but I suspect some of you do, but we went in at half time 1-0 thanks to a Darren Bent goal, that sort of just happened through fortune.
If Bent didn't help in an Ireland shot, it wasn't going to go in, but then at half time we took Ireland off and replaced him with Westwood. Ireland might not have had a great first half, but Westwood for Ireland doesn't make sense to me.
Okay, I didn't know Ireland was playing for the first fifteen minutes, but if you're winning at half time, you only make changes if there is an injury, so I can only assume that is why Ireland was taken off, because in the second half, we looked even worse than we did in the first and there is something in that statement.
In fairness though, Southampton were a lot more up for it in the second half and the four goals they scored confirm this. We sort of watched the ball, gave it away a little, but not as much as we did in the first half, but we still looked like we didn't know what we were doing.
Man of the match
I'm not sure why were poor today but I will say this, even for those that are going to tell me in the comments below that Lambert changes things around, we shouldn't have let Benteke start. Weimann had done well the past two games and the results were good. He isn't tired or injured and he does offer something different to Benteke, who plays a little like Bent but more like a target man.
But I'm not the manager and I thought we'd win today, so I'll shut up, but the upside is, we were not really beaten by Southampton today, we gave it to them, we were that bad. But I do have a stand out player for us, if only just, so I'm going to vote for him now and you can vote for your man of the match too.