Steven Gerrard hopes Aston Villa’s win is a tonic for super-fan Prince William after revealing the royal has been in regular contact despite losing the Queen.
Villa recorded their first win in four games to climb to 13th in the Premier League courtesy of Jacob Ramsey’s 41st minute winner. It helped Villa secure a deserved win on a night the club paid tribute to the late monarch.
They splashed the Queen on the frontpage of the programme and held a minute’s silence before the national anthem. Prince William sent his apologies for not attending but Villa still secured three points in his absence.
Boss Gerrard said: “He messaged through the week to the club. It was along the lines of: ‘I would love to be there’.
“It is really impressive his knowledge and how much he is into it. For him to message in the situation he is in is impressive. That shows what he thinks about this club and how much he wants to give.
"It was a special emotional night. I think the club did an extremely good job to pay our tributes. Hopefully we have rewarded that with a clean sheet and a win.”
The hosts only had three shots on target but it was enough to see off sorry Saints.
Saints defender Kyle Walker-Peters admitted that the away side were second best, declaring: "We didn’t deserve anything from the game. They were more aggressive than us and won more duels.
"That’s the bare minimum. When you lose those battles you get punished. We didn’t deserve anything. We weren’t quick enough for second balls which killed us a bit. Offensively we didn’t create anything. Disappointing performance."
Gerrard, who had been under growing pressure from the club’s billionaire owners, admitted afterwards he has changed his tactics to be more pragmatic.
Gerrard, who lost assistant manager Michael Beale to QPR this summer, said: “It wasn’t pretty, it wasn’t stylish but to me and to us it is a really important win. There was a lot of pressure on us.
“We stuck together and got it done with guts and character. We have had to change our style and cut out some of the pretty stuff until we move up the league. We did it in a different way, it was all about the result and the outcome.”
Villa skipper John McGinn admitted: “If I was watching on the telly I would have turned it off. But it is a huge win going into the international break.
“We have had a lot of criticism as a team and you either puff your chest out or go into a shell. The criticism hurts. We are not clicking and creating enough chances but we limited Southampton to very few and fought for every ball.”
Villa eventually grew into the contest as the recalled Philippe Coutinho tricked his way into space on the edge of the box and thumped a shot over.
The Brazilian went even closer with a back post header which Southampton’s Irish keeper Gavin Bazunu saved at his near post. Bazunu was called into action moments later to palm a header from Oli Watkins on to the bar following Coutinho’s cross.
But Ramsey was on hand to bury the follow up close-range finish which survived a VAR check for offside for the midfielder’s first of the season. Southampton boss Ralph Hassenhuttl was sufficiently unimpressed to make a double change at the break.
Yet despite using all his five subs in the second half, Saints failed to seriously trouble Emiliano Martinez who kept his first clean sheet of the season.
Hassenhuttl, whose side lost 1-0 at Wolves previously, said: “Our game with the ball was not sharp enough and quick enough. We have to analyse because the last two games were similar.”
