Southampton vs Aston Villa

saints / 45
HEAD TO HEAD
Statistics
Overall
P83 W29 D23 L31
At St Mary’s
P12 W5 D3 L4
MEMORABLE
MOMENT
Sadio Mané celebrates his
record-breaking hat-trick at
Villa’s expense. The winger
scored three times in just
two minutes 56 seconds
en route to a 6-1 rout at St
Mary’s in 2015.
an opponent’s press and draw
the defensive line up onto the
halfway line, which creates
space in behind.
From there, they’ll try to feed
it into Kamara, who in turn will
try to release a speedy forward
in behind – typically either
Ollie Watkins or Leon Bailey.
Where can Southampton
find joy against this Villa
side?
If Saints opt for a pressing
strategy, it will need to be
perfectly executed. Villa have
drawn several opponents onto
them and then played straight
through them of late (Leeds
United being a prime example),
so it comes with risk attached.
There’s a potential plus
matchup for Southampton
on the left flank; if Samuel
Edozie can emulate parts of
Wilfried Gnonto’s twisting,
turning performance from last
weekend, 38-year-old rightback
Ashley Young could be in
for another stern examination.
The battle between those two
was quite the sight, with Young
using every trick in the book (in
addition to showing remarkable
fitness and mobility for his age)
to keep Gnonto at bay for as
long as possible.
On the other flank, Álex
Moreno made an abrupt debut
off the bench last weekend
and struggled to immediately
match the rhythm and pace of
the Premier League. He’s one
week wiser now but may still
struggle at some points.
Lastly, you can’t even consider
a Southampton attacking
move right now without
envisioning James Ward-
Prowse at the heart of it,
whose free-kick radar is as
strong as ever.