Aston Villa 1-0 Southampton: Jacob Ramsey goal the difference in dire game

Aston Villa ran out 1-0 winners over Southampton at Villa Park on Friday evening thanks to a goal from Jacob Ramsey.

The young midfielder scored the goal in the 41st minute of what will go down as the worst game of football of the season.

The opening half an hour of the game at Villa Park was, in truth, an absolute abomination. It was probably the worst 30 minutes of football that will be played in the world throughout the 2022/23 – and that’s an understatement.

Neither team looked remotely capable of doing anything in the final third, with Leon Bailey in particular wasting a number of opportunities to create something for his side.

Thankfully for everyone watching, business picked up for a bit in the 33rd minute when Philippe Coutinho turned on the style to swivel past James Ward-Prowse before firing a long-range effort just over the crossbar.

Coutinho then forced Gavin Bazunu into his first bit of action of the evening in the 40th minute, seeing a strike from the left of the penalty turned around the post by the Republic of Ireland international.

From the resulting corner, Bazunu was forced into another save, preventing an Ollie Watkins header from crossing the line. Unfortunately for the goalkeeper however, Jacob Ramsey was first to react to the rebound, volleying in off the crossbar to make it 1-0 to the home side.

On the stroke of half-time it was so nearly 2-0. Bailey, after an awful performance in the opening half an hour, almost redeemed himself with a good strike across goal from the right of the penalty area – a strike which deflected narrowly wide of the post.

Sadly, the opening exchanges of the second half were similar to those of the first: absolutely dire. Despite Southampton make two changes at half-time – bringing on Joe Aribo and Juan Larrios – the visitors didn’t look remotely capable of scoring a goal, while at the other end Bailey had lost the ball 23 times in the first 60 minutes of the game.

It wasn’t good. At all.

And just when we thought the game couldn’t get any worse, after the 70th minute mark, it actually did.

Neither Aston Villa or Southampton did anything that, by any stretch, could be called ‘good’. One of the two highlights of the second half was perhaps Mohammed Salisu calling all of his teammates in to the penalty area ahead of a long throw, only to then throw the ball straight out for a goal kick. And that was only a highlight because it was funny.