*Vassell makes most noise*

While the minds of many players from these two sides have began drifting towards a summer break, the holidays for Darius Vassell still seem a long way off.

He continued his recent good form with another two goals that took his sequence to four in his past three games. It will be a major surprise if he is not among the 23 named next week by England coach, Sven-Göran Eriksson, for the World Cup finals.

For Gordon Strachan, however, the break will come as welcome relief. This was an unwelcome reminder of the previous week’s defeat against Everton after which Strachan refused to talk to his players for three days.

Before kick-off a presentation was made by the Portsmouth Evening News to Villa’s Peter Crouch, who had been selected as Pompey’s player of the season even though he left Fratton Park for £5m on transfer deadline day.

That was preceded by the award of Villa’s player of the year prize to Juan Pablo Angel, whom Graham Taylor is refusing to pick while he declines to pledge his future to the club. Few expect the Colombian to be reporting for pre-season training in July.

Predictably, booing emanated from the away end every time Crouch touched the ball but he was responsible for winning the corner that led to Villa taking the lead in the eighth minute.

Southampton never properly cleared Thomas Hitzlsperger’s first effort and when the rebound fell to him, the German played the ball that Vassell leapt to meet beautifully and plant a header beyond Neil Moss.

Three minutes before the break, Southampton cracked again when they were caught out by Gareth Barry’s ball over their defence that Vassell shot past Moss. The sight of Strachan on the touchline at the start of the second half seemed to galvanise Southampton and there was far more purpose about them.

They nearly pulled a goal back within five minutes following a determined run from Rory Delap that ended with him hitting a shot against the base of the post. But 90 seconds later they did score when James Beattie converted Anders Svensson’s low cross.