Aston Villa boss John Gregory sympathised with his fans' frustrations after watching his side slump to a 1-0 home defeat to Southampton.

The Midlanders left the pitch to jeers at half-time and at the end of the game at Villa Park after a Dean Richards header gave the Saints their first FA Carling Premiership win since August 28. But the hosts have now gone six League matches without a victory and Gregory could understand why the home supporters jeered the players in claret and blue.

``If you pay to come in, you're allowed to boo,'' he said. ``We've been booed off at half-time against Middlesbrough and Bradford this season and on both occasions we managed to win. ``If your team doesn't win, that's the reaction you tend to get. We've had that reaction from fans before today - we had it last season and we had it when we lost to Barnsley 18 months ago.''

The supporters chanted ``You don't know what you're doing'' at Gregory when he substituted Paul Merson after 80 minutes. But the Villa boss explained: ``He was absolutely shattered. He had nothing to give after 65 minutes because he'd put a lot into the game and covered a lot of ground. ``If they were to ask Merse if he wanted to come off with 15 minutes to go, he would have probably said yes because he was knackered.''

Alan Thompson hit the bar with a free-kick from near the right touchline after 18 minutes but Villa rarely looked like scoring after that near-miss. Gregory said: ``We battled hard, to be fair, but we didn't get the break in the last third. ``Their keeper made an outstanding save from Benito Carbone and we went close a couple of times when we should have done better - but that's been the case in the last few weeks.

``But we probably didn't make as many chances today as we did at Old Trafford last week. If you're not in the penalty box, you're unlikely to score - and we didn't score today.''