Jhon Duran earns Aston Villa victory over struggling Southampton
By Sunny Badwal, PA
Jhon Duran marked his first Premier League start of the season with the winner to earn Aston Villa a 1-0 victory over Southampton.
It was the first time Unai Emery’s side have won back-to-back league games since September as they followed up their mid-week success over Brentford.
Goals for Duran have dried up following his heroics off the bench in the early part of the season, but bottom side Southampton shot themselves in the foot again defensively to allow the Colombian to stroke home his first league goal since September.
Russell Martin’s struggling side have taken just one point away from St Mary’s and their miserable run continued as they failed to register a shot on target all game.
Taylor Harwood-Bellis, Flynn Downes and Tyler Dibling all returned for the Saints following their suspension in midweek, while Emery opted to give Duran his first league start of the season over Ollie Watkins in one of four changes from Villa’s win over Brentford.
Storm Darragh made its presence known around Birmingham as high winds and driving rain made conditions tough for the players.
The Saints have established an unwanted reputation of playing themselves into trouble in recent weeks and they almost paid the price again.
Goalkeeper Joe Lumley tried the play the ball out from the back and his clumsy pass allowed Duran to get a shot on target, with John McGinn’s effort on the rebound blocked to safety.
Up until that point Villa had hardly troubled their opponents’ goal, but they found themselves 1-0 up midway through the first half.
Diego Carlos’ long ball caused confusion between Harwood-Bellis and Nathan Wood, which allowed Duran to run through on goal and lift a finish over Lumley for his fifth goal of the campaign.
The home side started to ooze confidence after the goal.
Morgan Rogers slalomed his way into the area and sent a ball across the face of goal, but no one was on hand to poke into an empty net.
Southampton started the second half the brighter of the two sides, prompting Emery to make four changes just before the hour mark. Leon Bailey was the enforced switch after he went down with what appeared to be a hamstring issue.
Villa were almost caught out on the counter-attack following a corner as Dibling powered through the middle of the pitch and he offloaded to Cameron Archer, who saw his effort blocked by Boubacar Kamara.
While the deficit remained at one, Saints still fancied their chances of snatching something from the game. Substitute Sam Amo-Ameyaw’s cross tried to pick out the run of Adam Armstrong and Martinez had to deal with it.
Villa twice had a chance to make the points safe, first when Ross Barkley saw his goal-bound effort blocked behind by Wood and then when McGinn forced a save from Lumley, as the Saints fell to a fourth defeat from five games.