Analysis: Ugly win a reminder Aston Villa possess more than just style

After receiving plaudits but no points for their performance at Burnley in midweek, Saturday night’s win at Southampton saw a welcome return of characteristics which have underpinned their impressive first half of the Premier League season.

Winning ugly has been more of a factor in Villa’s campaign than casual observers of Dean Smith’s team might realise. Of their 10 Premier League wins, four have now been by a 1-0 scoreline, while they have kept 10 clean sheets in 19 matches.

Whenever the going has got tough, Villa have typically got going and that is the chief reason Wednesday’s second-half collapse against the Clarets was so surprising. This win, courtesy of Ross Barkley’s 41st-minute header, was in many ways the perfect response and suggested what happened at Turf Moor was an aberration, rather than an emerging theme.

Admittedly, it was arguably Villa’s scrappiest victory of the season to date and probably their most fortunate.

Only the increasingly unfathomable complexities of the handball law spared Matty Cash from conceding an early penalty, while a late VAR check was required to confirm the assistant referee had been correct in flagging Danny Ings’ stoppage-time equaliser offside.

Yet having been on the wrong end of some of the season’s most egregious and controversial officiating calls, Villa will feel they were due some luck on that front. There was also nothing fortunate about the way Smith’s players fought to preserve their lead late in the second half, or the club’s decision to pay a potential £20million for Emiliano Martinez in the summer transfer window.

Once again the goalkeeper was a major factor in Villa securing a narrow win, saving in the second half from Che Adams and Jan Bednarek, while helping to marshal a defensive rearguard.

So good has Martinez been over the first half of the campaign it is easy to forget paying big money for a goalkeeper who, at the time, had started only 11 Premier League matches was met with a few raised eyebrows.

Now it feels a masterstroke, with Martinez quickly establishing himself as one of the most consistent keepers in the top flight, proving his worth in tight, tense tussles with Leicester, Wolves and then again on Saturday. Having kept clean sheets in more than half of the matches played, he is on course to set a new bar for Villa’s highest number of shut-outs recorded in a single Premier League season, which currently stands at 19 from the 1996/97 campaign.

Martinez’s influence also extends some way beyond simply keeping the ball out of the net. Young, hungry and not afraid to outline his big ambitions, the Argentine embodies the spirit of a Villa team which is beginning to think big.

Against Southampton they found just enough flair to eke out a win, their goal emerging from the game’s one true moment of quality as a flowing move ended with Jack Grealish crossing for Barkley to head home his third goal of the season and first since October.

That came during a five-minute burst in which Villa’s attacking cogs suddenly crunched into gear, with Ollie Watkins twice testing home keeper Alex McCarthy. Other than that, Villa’s general play lacked fluency, but they found enough to bludgeon a victory which had some significance to the season’s bigger picture, moving them back within striking distance of the top six while pushing Southampton, now with just one win in seven, further into mid-table.

Saturday’s match was the first in a run of what might be termed mid-season ‘six-pointers’ against clubs who also see themselves as contenders for European qualification. Villa have the chance to make further progress – and deliver more direct blows to rivals – in home matches against West Ham and Arsenal this week.

Smith’s men have also, finally, hit the midway point in their campaign and it feels an appropriate time to pause and reflect on their achievements so far.

With half a season left to play, Villa are currently on course to record their best top-flight points tally for more than a decade and – even more impressively – chalk up the most wins since finishing runners-up to Manchester United in the inaugural 1992-93 Premier League season.

For a club which began the campaign with the primary goal of not being involved in another relegation battle, the progress has been nothing short of remarkable. It is fair to say the speed of the team’s transformation in recent months has even taken some of those inside Villa Park by surprise.

By the same token, there is a recognition this is not a time for resting on laurels and there is a genuine desire to push on and deliver on the promise shown so far.

The second half of the season will bring challenges. Villa are now some way beyond the point where they might be classed a surprise package. Their schedule will also be among the most hectic, half a season crammed into just 110 days from kick-off against West Ham on Wednesday to the scheduled finish against Chelsea on May 23.

The recent signing of Morgan Sanson from Marseille will help provide further depth in that respect while Smith, who did not make a substitution until the closing seconds of Saturday’s match, also has the likes of Trezeguet and Anwar El Ghazi – who along with Grealish is the club’s second top scorer this term – waiting in the wings.

For all Villa’s progress, much will still depend on whether Grealish can maintain the form which has, quite rightly, led to him being touted as a potential Player of the Year candidate.

Southampton actually kept him relatively well-shackled, but Villa’s skipper is now so clinical he only requires one or two openings to land a telling blow.

His cross for Barkley’s goal, delivered with his supposedly weaker left foot, was his ninth assist of the season and he has been directly involved in 15 goals in 19 games.

Quite simply, Grealish is on course to record one of the finest individual campaigns ever by a Villa player.

Matching the big ambitions of their talisman is perhaps the biggest reason Smith and his team must keep their foot on the gas during the second half of a season which has the potential to be very special.