Very good first half, not enough goals. Slightly poor second half but defensively sound ( mostly)
Ralph plays KWP left back, to prevent left footed right wingers cutting in to shoot but maybe should tell him it's ok for him to do that at the other end!

4

Ralph did really well on the subs and the timing of them, gets a lot of criticism normally for this aspect of his management, so well done to him.

5

It looked like Villa were there for the taking. Minus their star players and anticipating their fifth consecutive defeat, they began the game, like Leeds Reserves did, low on confidence and hoping they wouldn't suffer a heavy defeat. A 6-0 Saints win wouldn't have been surprising. But our players came out after the half -time talk clearly under instructions to just hang on to a 1-0 lead. It worked, just.

A win is a win so credit to Ralph and the players for delivering it. Great to see Adam Armstrong score and our defence keep yet another clean sheet. 1-0 to the Southampton is becoming familiar. If we win most of our remaining games 1-0, this will be a brilliant season.

4

Are we becoming 1-0 winning specialists?
Big congratulations to Adam Armstrong for his brilliant match winning goal. What a left foot first-timer hit from 20 yards.
Like the Watford game we should have gotten perhaps 3 goals in the first half and buried the game - in the first half - but we didn't. So we had to hold on and we did, preventing Villa from clear cut chances.
Our defense looks continuously solid, and Ralph has become more pro-active and aware of tactical changes to be able to hold on to a lead.
He changed to a 3-5-2 after an hour bringing on Lyanco for Stuey. And again Lyanco played his part in closing up shop (like he did in the end of the Watford game), only this time he got 41 minutes, injury time included.
An important victory and we can go into the international break with our heads held high and now on 14 points and only 3 points away from 6th spot (before the rest of this weekends' games).
Well done!
Adam Armstrong was, I believe, chosen for MOTM and I'm happy for him. Worked tirelessly
and took part in pressuring as well as link-up / build-up play throughout the game, dropping deep on the pitch on several occasions to receive the ball and participate.
Players like JWP and KWP and (of course) Salisu also had very good performances and no Saints player had a bad game.
One 'negative' point apart from Stueys big miss in the first half and the fact that Martinez had two world class saves from JWPs first-timer shot (first half) and Adams' header (second half) was that we didn't look particularly dangerous from our corners.
COYS <3

5