AFTER 45 atrocious first-half minutes at Villa Park on Saturday, some Saints players were seriously wondering whether they would have to give up their Sunday morning lie-in for a second successive week.

They were 2-0 down in what, but for a promising first seven minutes before Darius Vassell stole in to put Villa in front with the first of his two goals, was a drab half.

The 3,500 Saints fans, dressed in ginger wigs and sporting tam-o-shanters in honour of Southampton's flame-haired Scots manager Gordon Strachan, must have wondered why they had bothered to journey up from the south coast for this end-of-season away day party.

The team were impotent, they were poor, and though you could credit Vassell for two quality first-half strikes, fingers have to be pointed as to how the Villa man got into a position to score.

Vassell stands only 5ft 7in, but he somehow timed his jump to rise above the 6ft tall Paul Williams 12 yards out and loop a header just out of the reach of goalkeeper Neil Moss.

Skipper, Jason Dodd, admitted it was a disappointing goal to concede.

"We just switched off," he said. "We squeezed out, the ball was pumped into the area and just caught us.

"I don't know whether he (Vassell) meant the header - it was between the penalty area and the edge of the box - and the ball has looped over Mossy into the top right-hand corner. It was really disappointing."

The second Vassell goal, after 42 minutes, was a sublime finish, but Saints have only themselves to blame for conceding the goal.

Paul Telfer was robbed of the ball on half way by Peter Crouch. He found Gareth Barry, who picked out Vassell in acres of space right-edge of the penalty box. Wayne Bridge had been caught upfield and the defensive cover was not there.

Vassell picked his spot, one bounce, and buried the ball into the left-hand corner.

"To be fair he hit the ball like a rocket," said Moss. "It was one of those which dipped, I dived across, got the slightest touch to it and the ball has gone in off the post. On another day it would have hit the post and come out.

"All credit to Vassell, he is a striker on top form. Against anyone else apart from myself, I would say it is a good thing for England, but obviously I am disappointed he scored two against us today."

Strachan had some major tinkering to do at half-time. There was nothing wrong with the shape of the team, it simply wasn't competing.

What had happened to the fast-tempo slick passing game, the movement off the ball, the vision and presence which has become such a feature of Gordon Strachan's reign? It seems to have become smothered in recent weeks by the safety blanket of Premiership survival

Dodd said that the manager had asked his team to show a bit more character in the second half.

"He told us we had to improve on the last three bad halves of football we had played.

"We had nothing to lose because we just couldn't get it together in the first half."

The change was instant. Within four minutes, Rory Delap showed a clean pair of heels to Mark Delaney and his angled shot across the face of goal hit the post before rolling out for a goal-kick. Had the ball come into play, Brett Ormerod would have buried the rebound.

Then, two minutes later, Delap and Svensson combined to put Ormerod through, he squared the ball across goal to James Beattie, and the striker slid in at the far post to poke home the ball for a personal goal number 13 of the season.

"It was a good move," said Beattie. "Brett did really well, he got down the left hand side and put a great ball across, I just had to finish it off.

"It was similar to the move at Charlton but then Dean Kiely made a good save."

Game on, and the purposeful way Saints were playing you felt they might just nick a point. Beattie and Ormerod were forced to shoot from range but, when Villa boss Graham Taylor made a triple substitution after 65 minutes, bringing on Jlloyd Samuel, Moustapha Hadji and Juan Pablo Angel, Saints lost a bit of momentum.

In fact, Moss did well to twice deny Angel, once from a straightforward header after the Colombian beat the offside trap, and then a shot which took a wicked deflection off Lundekvam - Moss readjusting well.

Strachan was happier with the second 45 minutes.

"There were a lot of good performances in the second half. We took more responsibility in the second period and it made a big difference," he said.