Southampton were disappointing, offering none of the swagger and swoosh with which they have been entertaining us all this season. Villa had a plan and stuck to it, and certainly worked hard to deny the visitors space and chances. Had Weimann only scored with that second-half chance they would surely have won the game, so we can’t really blame the tactics here, but they surrendered so much possession that the Saints were bound to create some kind of opportunity at some point, and as it turned out they took it. A draw was probably a fair result. Not a thriller, certainly, but an enjoyable game. Thanks for sharing it with me. Bye!

90+2 mins: Villa break the most-desperate-clearances-in-a-30-second-spell record, with four absolute classics of the genre, and then win a free-kick on the half-way line.

90+1 mins: Into stoppage time we go, and there will be three minutes of it, unless the referee has a significant change of heart.

88 mins: Now it’s Southampton defending desperately, and Villa making their fans wonder what might have happened had they tried to score a little more often. Koemann decides that a defensive midfielder would probably come in handy now, and brings Cork on for Long.

85 mins: Villa are doing some attacking now, laying down probably their first concerted pressure of the half. They’re about to take a free-kick, central, 50 yards from goal.

83 mins: Clyne’s celebrations are barely over when he gets booked for a foul on the left flank. Forster claims the cross.

79 mins: Southampton bring Emmanuel Mayuka on for the disappointing Mané.

78 mins: What a miss! Weimann leads a break, picking the ball up 15 yards outside his own penalty area, running halfway into Southampton’s half and then passing right to Agbonlahor, before making a clever run into space on the edge of the area. The ball is rolled back into his path, and he only needed to pass it into the corner of the net – either corner would do – but instead tried to thump it, and launches it into orbit.

76 mins: Cissokho concedes a free-kick, from which Tadic optimistically shoots. Guzan saves, and then catches Alderweireld’s deflected effort moments later.

74 mins: Another sub, Darren Bent replacing Sanchez. “Is it naive of me to desperately want Southampton to win tonight, so that at least someone can challenge Chelsea?” wonders Charles Robinson. Yes. Want Southampton to win all you like, but not for that reason – they may well stick around in the top four, but a title challenge is surely beyond them.

73 mins: Now Tadic crosses and Pelle heads, but a) the ball flies over the bar, and b) he was offside.

73 mins: Save! Wanyama finds Fonte in the penalty area, and his cross/shot could well have gone in had Guzan not got a foot to it.

72 mins: Another booking, Okore taking out Long on the right wing.

70 mins: Villa break, and the crowd roar, and you finally realise how little roaring has been done at Villa Park of late. The break, however, ends before it crosses the half-way line.

67 mins: Southampton cross from the right, and the ball is headed to the edge of the area, from where Wanyama slices his shot well wide.

66 mins: Wave after wave of half-hearted Southampton thrusts repelled by Villa, defending in depth and numbers. The latest, a free-kick conceded by Hutton is swung into the mixer, and very swiftly cleared back out of the mixer.

63 mins: Aston Villa make a change, Kieran Richardson replacing N’Zogbia, who head straight to the changing rooms so is presumably injured in some minor way.

62 mins: Just the 62% of second-half possession for Southampton, which if anything is less than I expected. But for all that, Villa are the ones in control at the moment.

60 mins: Southampton are a decent final ball from scoring, and have been for a while. They still need that final ball, though, and Bertrand is the latest to fail with that, curling his cross out of play.

58 mins: We’ve got a booking! The first of the game goes to Wanyama, who arrives very late to take Cleverley’s legs away, after another Southampton attack had broken down on the edge of the area.

54 mins: And Southampton’s next attack ends with Long running down a blind alley and then tugging Cissokho’s wrist and conceding a free-kick.

51 mins: There is very little swagger and dash about Southampton tonight. Their latest attack ends with Long overhitting a cross from the right.

49 mins: Hutton storms down the right and crosses to Weimann, beyond the far post, whose header isn’t up to much.

48 mins: Mané hits the ball straight out of play again, just as he did in the fourth minute of half one only slightly less haplessly.

47 mins: Ooooooh! An outbreak of penalty-area pinball ends with the ball at, I think, NZogbia’s feet and his shot hitting a defender. “On the subject of Lou Roper saying that the second rule of being on Sky is ‘speaking without saying anything’, I strongly disagree with this,” asserts Charles Robinson. “Jamie Redknapp aside, for the last few years I’ve always thought of Souness, Carragher and Neville as being models of probity and integrity. Like them or not, the three of them seem willing and able to criticise when criticism is due.” To be fair, this is true. Webb is not going to be rivalling any of those three for the punditry prizes.

Players back out. More football happening imminently.

45+1 mins: Into stoppage time we go, and there’ll be about a minute of it.

43 mins: Optimistic shot of the day: Sanchez tries his luck from, what, 45 yards? Anyway, it goes at least 30 yards wide.

41 mins: Cissokho is currently turf-bound, and clutching his left ankle.

40 mins: Another save, though this one is a fair bit easier than the last. Southampton swing a corner into the penalty area, and Fonte heads it straight into Guzan’s midriff from 15 yards.

38 mins: Mark Chapman may have identified the cause of at least some of the empty seats:

37 mins: Save! Mané shoots with his right foot across goal, and it’s heading into the corner until Guzan flings out a hand!

36 mins: “I recall that a mistake by Boruc last season coincided with their season coming apart at the seams after a good start,” writes Neil McKenna. “Coincidence?” Yes, that’ll be the one at Arsenal, which was played on 23 November. Uncanny timing.

33 mins: British-based quiz fans: The Guardian’s Jonathan Wilson is on that funny BBC2 quiz show right now! Don’t bother watching it, though. He loses.

31 mins: That’s a proper clanger from Forster. Agbonlahor may well have reached the ball first and been through on goal had he not rushed out, but then that’s what happened anyway and if Forster had stuck on his line at least there would have been a goalkeeper to beat.

28 mins: A bit of laid-back half-way-line passing from Southampton takes a bit of the heat out of the game. There are lots of empty seats tonight, incidentally. I suppose it’s a bit chilly, and the game’s on telly, and the team’s been a bit useless, and it’s an expensive time of year, but still.

25 mins: Westwood’s effort deflects off the wall and straight to Forster.

24 mins: Agbonlahor runs half the length of the field, waits for support to arrive, and then decides it would probably be easier if he just fell over Jose Fonte’s leg. Free-kick.

22 mins: A minute’s applause in support of the families of victims of the Birmingham Bombings of 40 years and a couple of days ago, ends with a few seconds of enthusiastic roaring as it briefly looks like Hutton might do something decent. “Why should Mr Webb be singled out for speaking without saying anything?” avers Lou Roper. “Isn’t that item #2 (right after wearing a clean collar) on the Sky/‘Barclays English Premier League’ list of requirements for continuing employment?”

19 mins: Southampton are massively dominant at the moment, helped by Villa’s wretched inability to clear the ball rather than simply give it straight back to the opposition. Still no real chances, mind.

17 mins: Now they do! Pelle finds Bertrand with a nice backheel, the full-back slides to Mané, and his shot, attempted while falling over backwards, is off target.

16 mins: Southampton are enjoying a spell of pressure now, though but for that offside Mané moment apart they haven’t found a Saint in the box yet.

14 mins: Wanyama sprints down the right and crosses, Mané controls a moment before Hutton runs into the back of him and brings him down. It was a certain penalty, but for the fact that Mané had been a yard offside.

14 mins: Before kick-off today Villa’s fans were reminded of the kind of things they used to win, which seems particularly cruel in the circumstances.

10 mins: Nothing much comes from the corner but Villa can’t clear, and eventually the ball is worked to Wanyama, whose 20-yarder floats over.

9 mins: “Would Southampton’s home kit really have clashed with Villa’s?” wonders Kenny Munro, as Pelle’s shot is deflected over the bar. Not in any obvious way.

8 mins: Agbonlahor sprints down the right and crosses, but nobody else could sprint down the middle quite as quickly.

6 mins: I’m enjoying the Clyde-Cissokho match-up down the flank today. Not for footballing reasons, you understand, but because they are both attempting the shaved-sides-of-head-but-a-bit-of-length-up-top hairstyle, with very different degrees of success. In this, as in so much this season, Villa’s defender has let himself down.

4 mins: There’s one for the highlights reel from Sadio Mané, who is found by a long, raking right-to-left pass, waits for support to arrive and then kicks the ball straight out of play in comedy hapless style.

2 mins: A promising, open opening, almost all of it spent in the Southampton half, ends with Agbonlahor sprinting to the centre of the pitch and shooting from 20 yards, only for a diving defender to block.

The players are out and limbering up busily. Deep breath now.

Paul Lambert speaks!

It’s a big game, no two ways about it, but you’ve got to step up to it. There’s no point hiding from it, you’ve got to meet the challenge. It’s a chance for the two young lads to go and stake it. A win would be massive, the table’s really tight. [Asked about his job] It’s great, I love it. The pressure’s always there. The solution is to win games and that’s what we’ll try to do.

Ronald Koeman also speaks! Did he bring Long in because of Villa’s defensive issues?

A little bit yet. One reason. First is I think we need a little bit more offensive in the midfield, Jack Cork looks a little bit more defensive, I think for today the best option was to put Shane [Long] behind Pelle, and of course they have some problems in the centre-backs. Every Premier League game is a battle. OK, they’re in a difficult position, but I suspect they’re more dangerous. The spirit in the team, we need it again tonight.

“Watching Howard Webb’s analysis of recent refereeing decisions in the Premier League on Monday Night Football, it’s very clear that he is an erudite and intelligent man. It’s also very clear that he is absolutely not allowed to say anything that might suggest that any of his former colleagues have ever made a misjudgement while officiating a game,” complains Matt Loten. “Surely there is no point inviting someone on to provide analysis if their job apparently precludes them from airing their opinion? Very frustrating to watch.”

I agree. Whenever Sky’s footage proved that a referee had erred, Webb swiftly pointed out that in the studio they were enjoying the benefit of slow-motion replays while [insert referee’s name here] had to go with what he saw in real time blah blah blah blah blah.

This is a fair point. People actually called Clive must be quite disconcerted by all this.

Aston Villa have seen the light! Or, as it’s officially known, the Founding Lamp:

The good news: Villa’s coach got stuck in traffic, but has just arrived.

Teams!

According to the clubs’ official Twitterousness, these will be tonight’s teams:

Hello world!

The last seven games between these sides on these grounds have brought two 0-0 draws, two 1-0 away wins and an assortment of home-favourable scores (1-0, 2-1 and 2-0, since you ask). In short, it’s been a recent history of close-fought matches with fairly equal outcomes.

Perhaps today will be different. After all, Villa have the league’s very worst home record, with a four-point haul from their five games thus far, while Southampton are the fourth-best travellers in the land, with nine points from five games. And while Southampton have won 11 of their last 12 Villa have been simply abject, with their fans having just one goal and one point to celebrate in their last eight games, as the team has slumped from the mirage-like glory of second in the league – as they were after winning three of their first four – to their current position of 17th.

Teams and clubs will always go through difficult spells,” says Paul Lambert, for whom this will be a 100th game in charge. “Teams have little ropey times they will come through. I think every football management job is hard, you don’t have success all the time, it is like a bubble which appears now and again, then it goes away and you don’t see it for a few years.”

A few years! Years! It’s only been two months and everyone’s already pretty grumpy. Imagine if Villa are still serving up this stuff in 2016! There’ll be riots in the streets!

Lambert also revealed that he tried to sign Saints ace Dusan Tadic “the January before last”. “So we’ve known about his talents for a while now, but we couldn’t quite get it done. There were loads of factors which just meant we couldn’t get it done. It was January 2013, he was at FC Twente and they were looking for a right few quid.” Which pretty well sets the scene for some cosmic Serbian success this evening. “If we do what we’ve been doing in the last two games, we will certainly give them a game, that’s for sure,” trilled Lambert. Time will tell – and not much of it, either. Welcome.