Southampton 1 Aston Villa 3
Aston Villa moved into fifth place in the English Premiership and ensured Southampton stayed bottom of the table with a 3-1 away win tonight.
Two goals in six minutes from George Boateng and Juan Pablo Angel put Villa 2-0 up before Latvian forward Marian Pahars pulled one back for Southampton in the final seconds of the first-half.
Both sides had a player sent off in the second half before Mustapha Hadji ensured Villa maintained their unbeaten start to the season with a goal 11 minutes from time.
Southampton in their first floodlit match at the new St Mary's Stadium and their first without central defender Dean Richards, taken by former boss Glenn Hoddle to Tottenham for 8.1 million pounds (12 million dollars), started brightly.
Villa captain and former Manchester United goalkeeper Peter Schmeichel made a good save from a Kevin Davies' header following a Rory Delap cross.
Then in the ninth minute Villa took the lead. Dion Dublin played in Boateng who blasted the ball past Southampton keeper Paul Jones.
Villa went 2-0 up six minutes later when a neat passing move initiated by Angel ended with the Colombian slipping the ball under the advancing Jones.
Schmeichel was called on again when another fine left-handed save saw Davies' 18-yard strike turned away.
But just before the end of the first half, diminutive Latvian Pahars headed home from Davies' fine cross to pull one back for Southampton.
Tempers frayed early in the second half with two red cards issued by referee Steve Dunn. First to go in the 52nd minute was Delap deemed to have denied Kachloul a clear goalscoring chance when he clipped his heels.
Then four minutes later, Dublin departed in controversial circumstances. From a free-kick Southampton defender Tahar El Khalej, stood next to Dublin, went down in the Villa box.
Referee Dunn consulted with both linesmen before sending off Dublin for what was presumably a headbutt although television replays suggested minimal, if any contact, at best.
Villa had to do their fair share of defending but just after Southampton boss Stuart Gray had gambled on a double substitution the visitors wrapped up the points.
Lee Hendrie's 79th minute cross from a throw-in caught the Southampton defence napping and unmarked Moroccan Hadji made no mistake with the free header for his first Aston Villa goal. -AFP