Southampton 0-1 Aston Villa: Ollie Watkins scores the only goal of the game as Saints stay bottom

The day after Aston Villa allowed Danny Ings to go ahead, Ollie Watkins picked a good time to suggest he is ready to take on the biggest scoring load.

With the game drifting like the drone over St Mary’s causing a 10-minute first-half delay and Aston Villa in need of a hero, Watkins appeared for a 77th-minute header that continued their remarkable comeback under the Directed by Unai Emery.

Following Ings’ £12m transfer to West Ham, Watkins is, for now, the only senior striker left in the Spanish team.

On the bench, Emery had no alternative to resort to, a place that Ings could well have occupied.

It doesn’t matter. At Southampton, Watkins was made available to deliver and intends to continue to do so. He said: ‘There is always pressure when you play for a massive club like Villa. It is a pity [Ings has left] but I am willing to take responsibility and be the main striker. i’m savoring it

‘As a striker, there is one thing you must do and that is score goals. I’m working on it, keeping my cool, and I took my chance. I work hard every day to put the ball in the back of the net and I will continue to do so.

Thanks to Watkins, Villa left St Mary’s with all three points after a poor quality clash but not, in the end, with few incidents.

It meant a fifth win in seven league games and 16 Premier League points from a possible 21 for Emery. Villa were only outside the relegation zone on goal difference before their first game, but are now 11th and just one point off the top half of the table.

Emery said: ‘I’m very proud of our work. Today was a key game because two months ago we were at the bottom.’ On his winning goal, Emery added: “He’s a competitor and he’s a striker and when he’s not scoring he’s not happy, but I’m very happy with his work and how he’s helping the team.”

Now it’s Southampton who sit bottom and they squandered the chance to follow up a brilliant three-game winning streak last week by coming out of the relegation zone. They have not won a home league game since August and were booed yet again. Manager Nathan Jones was also frustrated, his team once again conceding a set piece despite his buildup warnings.

The former Luton boss said: ‘Size-wise, we’re not the biggest. Probably one of the smallest in the Premier League, in terms of squads.

‘We have to be very, very organized, very aggressive, very structured in terms of the work that we do. I couldn’t have been more aggressive yesterday and in the way I did certain things. But they naively blocked us today.

‘I come from a level where the land of the giants is. Here we have to be better. We have to be disciplined. That let us down.

Jones was also angry with referee Michael Salisbury, who overturned his own decision and scored James Ward-Prowse’s goal just after an hour after a VAR review for a foul by Mohamed Elyounoussi on Jacob Ramsey.

Jones said: ‘I’m not really sure it’s a clear and obvious mistake. And if it’s not a clear and obvious mistake, it’s a lot to reject. The referee has been very picky, very pedantic today in terms of so many fouls, especially against us.

Fourteen minutes later, Southampton were trailing when Watkins fired a Douglas Luiz free-kick past Gavin Bazunu. Two striking saves from World Cup winner Emi Martinez to either side of Watkins’ goal, the first to deny Adam Armstrong and the second to deflect Moussa Djenepo’s late curler, helped Villa return to the Midlands victorious.

They did so a bit later than planned after the first half was stopped when Salisbury spotted a drone flying over the ground.

He ordered the players off the pitch, and play resumed once the device had moved away from the stadium following police involvement. That seemed to be the talking point of the game, with clear chances few and far between and repeated oversights from both sides. Then, the second half brought the controversial VAR intervention and Watkins’ goal.