Analysis: Dean Smith searching for answers after Southampton defeat puts Aston Villa back at square one

Losing a third match in succession would be bad enough for any team so precariously placed as Villa in the Premier League table.

Yet Saturday’s 2-0 reverse at Southampton was no standard defeat. Villa’s performance was the type to set alarm bells ringing, the kind which prompts a manager to stop and question everything he previously believed about his team.

In the immediate aftermath there was only anger, Smith taking aim at his players in what was comfortably the fieriest post-match press conference of his tenure and possibly his nine-year managerial career.

“It’s not about me. It’s about them,” he snapped, before delivering the devastating observation his squad contains too many “training ground players”.

They would be harsh words coming from any manager. Yet delivered by Smith, who is almost always positive and confident when discussing his players, they carried an even greater bite.

In truth his fury was born from the frustration of having genuinely believed Villa were past these type of performances.

After the nightmare 3-0 defeat at Watford in late December, a point at which the whole season was threatening to unravel, Smith had managed to engineer something of a turnaround.

There were big wins over Burnley and Watford, in the home return fixture, following a tactical switch to three at the back. Reaching the Carabao Cup final with a brilliant two-legged victory over Leicester further added to the sense Villa were once again a club with upward momentum.

In that context, Saturday’s showing felt for Smith like a jolting return right back to square one.

It is barely a week since Villa’s head coach talked of seeing “green shoots of recovery” and of players, many of whom are experiencing their first season in the Premier League, finally getting to grips with the competition.

Yet such a notion looked laughable as Villa shambled their way around the St Mary’s Stadium pitch. Not once was home keeper Alex McCarthy seriously tested, while the biggest surprise of the afternoon was it took until virtually the last kick of the game for the Saints to add to Shane Long’s eighth minute opener.

Stuart Armstrong stroked the ball into an empty net with Pepe Reina, who had gone forward to contest a stoppage time corner, barely back inside his own half. It was a snapshot of the chaos which dominated Villa’s display.

When pushed, Smith claimed to not be feeling quite so low as when Villa were beaten at Watford.

But that result was nearly two months ago and it is difficult to make a case the current outlook is not significantly more worrying. For one thing, Smith has far less time to fix the problems.

Villa have just 11 league games remaining, one of those being away to runaway league leaders who have dropped just two points all season.

Involvement in Sunday’s Carabao Cup final, meanwhile, means Smith’s team do not resume their Premier League campaign until a fortnight today, by which time they will be fortunate not to be in the bottom three.

Dire as Saturday’s showing was, neither was it a one-off. Smith claimed not to have seen the performance coming, yet he said similar after defeats to Wolves, Leicester, Watford and following the home loss to Southampton.

Though the temptation is to claim inconsistency as the only consistent element of this Villa team, that would not be entirely accurate, because there are several things at which they have been very dependable.

They have been consistently beaten, for one, with Saturday’s defeat their 16th out of 27 in the Premier League.

They have also been consistently poor away from home, where they have collected only eight points, while also typically failing to get results against teams in the top half of the table, eight of whom they must now face during the run-in.

When faced with those numbers, it is easy to see why an increasing number of observers are starting to tip Villa for an immediate return to the Championship. Certainly, no-one who watched them at Southampton on Saturday would fancy their chances of beating the drop.

No player emerged with much credit, from the disturbingly erratic Reina, to the off-colour Jack Grealish, who despite producing his poorest performance for months was still comfortably the best visiting player.

Villa’s issues, both on Saturday and across the season in general, were perhaps best summed up by the central midfield duo of Douglas Luiz and Marvelous Nakamba.

Though both have shown flashes of their potential, there have been too many error-strewn days like this, with neither able to positively impact proceedings.

Smith, who recalled Nakamba to the starting line-up in place of Danny Drinkwater, never knows for certain what to expect from either player from one week to the next and now nearly seven months into the season, that is clearly a huge concern. The return to fitness of John McGinn cannot come soon enough.

Villa, as a collective, are a team you cannot trust. Impressive one week against Tottenham, horrendous the next. It feels fair to wonder, so far into the campaign, whether any combination of system and tactics can make up for the shortfalls in quality which have frequently been exposed in certain areas of the squad.

That, however, is what Smith must attempt to do, starting with this weekend’s trip to Wembley where, despite being huge underdogs against Manchester City, a heavy defeat would further damage confidence.

While the boss launched a broadside at his players, he will also be aware a healthy portion of supporter discontent is aimed in his direction. Much like after Watford, Saturday’s defeat put his position back under scrutiny and in that regard he can have no complaints. This is ultimately his team, his tactics and his problem.

No club knows how quickly fortunes can change like Villa who, less than a month ago, saw players carried off the pitch in celebration following their semi-final win over Leicester.

Smith, meanwhile, has already proved once this season he is capable of halting a slide. There is also the fact that Villa, barring a shock result when West Ham travel to Anfield tonight, will stay above the drop zone for at least a few more days.

But with the clock ticking down, lasting solutions are now required. One thing Smith said cannot be disputed, this has to be the low point.