West Ham 0-3 Southampton
I don't want to dwell on how bad West Ham were for very long, since I'll be exploring them in a little more detail in an FF article later this week, probably published on Thursday. But it's worth nothing how staggeringly poor they were in this game before we go on to talk about Southampton, because they really were very very bad.
The first half saw them reasonably solid defensively, albeit without really being put under any pressure. But they never really looked like scoring. Despite the fact that a lot of that can be attributed to how good Southampton were defensively, in an attacking sense, West Ham looked short of ideas, completely devoid of creativity and in Zaza up front they had a player guaranteed to kill stone dead any chances they had of scoring when the ball came to his feet. Antonio is a good aerial threat and we all know how good a player Payet is but the truth was that Payet had zero influence on this game. He was totally anonymous and as a result, West Ham looked neutered.
And second half, their lack of any attacking panache was joined by a complete and utter collapse defensively. As soon as the first goal went in, the game was over. The game completely changed in that second, as devoid of any confidence, West Ham imploded defensively. The defending for the second goal in particular was laughably bad, as Saints got in behind them time and time again. It was a shambles.
But as I said, I want to focus on how impressed I was with Southampton, who have had a rough start to the season that will hopefully be bolstered by this result. In the first half, Southampton looked a side out of ideas, short on creativity, and their fluid attacking three of Redmond, Tadic and Austin took a while to get going. Redmond is a player who runs between the lines, finds channels, Tadic is a sharp, creative winger and Austin is very much a target man, and it took Saints a while for that three to find their rhythm, as well as their positioning, Austin playing out on the left for the first twenty minutes before eventually moving central and once he was there Southampton started to tick.
The first goal, shortly before half-time lit up what was otherwise a relatively boring opening half of football. Lovely movement from Bertrand and interplay with Tadic resulted in a great cross being turned in sharply by Austin. A fluid attacking move from the Saints but truly dreadful defending from West Ham, who failed to track their runners or get tight enough to Austin.
From there, the floodgates opened, Tadic at the heart of everything as Southampton seized total control of the game. In truth, they could easily have scored five or six in the second half, so dangerous were they when they came forward. It really was a case of goals changing games. Southampton's confidence exploded, and their pass and move game improved exponentially, Hojbjerg and Davis were starting to pull the strings, Tadic was influential and the full backs were rampaging, Cedric getting in down the right two or three times.
But as much as Southampton's confidence and play was bolstered by the goal, West Ham went very much the other way, as heads dropped, players stopped trying, and defensively they fell to pieces. The second goal for Saints, which killed the game, was lovely play from Austin and Redmond to free Tadic, but the West Ham players will be ashamed to look back at it. And from there, the game was dead and buried, it was just a case of how many Southampton would score. In the end it was three, Ward-Prowse coming on as a substitute to wreak havoc on a tired and withering defence and finishing off an excellent move between Davis and Redmond.
I just wanted to highlight two things that may have been lost from a Southampton perspective amongst all the clamour about how well Tadic and Austin played (they were both excellent) and how badly West Ham played (extremely badly).
The first is the movement of Nathan Redmond, who on three or four occasions at least made an exceptionally well timed and positioned run in behind, only to not quite get the quality of pass that he required to be in on goal. Redmond was increasingly frustrated as the game ran on at times and it was easy to see why as he was doing everything right.
The other is how seriously impressed I was by Jose Fonte and Virgil Van Dijk. Neither need any introductory praise, as its well known how impressive they were for Saints last season, but again at the Olympic Stadium they showed why they are one of the best central defensive pairings in the league. Only Vertonghen and Alderweireld at Spurs are a consistently more solid pair for me (whilst it can be argued United and Arsenal both have more solid defensives, neither have displayed a consistently solid pairing over the last season and a bit). They won everything in the air and on the ground, and a better team than West Ham would seriously have struggled today. Over the last few weeks a lot of talk has gone into how bad West Ham have been defensively, but against Watford and West Brom they didn't struggle to score goals and a lot of their failure to do so yesterday was down to the imperious nature of the two Saints central defenders.
Neither of these two clubs have quite been able to emulate the heights that they achieved last season. For West Ham, there was a serious expectation amongst a lot of fans that with their new stadium, some money and European football, they could sign big players and challenge for the Champions League. This is increasingly looking like a pipe dream, as they sit in the relegation zone, with one win from their opening six games and a goal difference that is worse than everyone except Stoke.
But for Southampton, it was another summer of selling their best players, and their manager, and making do with what they had, facing a real uphill struggle for a top ten finish. But based on this performance, there is real evidence that once again, Southampton are improving, slowly but surely, and this result makes it four wins on the spin. They've only lost to Man United and Arsenal this season and are now up to 9th, only two points off Chelsea and the lower European places. Is another top six finish on the cards? Probably not, but the Saints are beginning to look like a lively proposition.
The Hard and Fast Section
- Bradley Wiggins under serious fire for drugs use.
- RIP Arnold Palmer. A legend of his sport.
- Bad news for City with KDB injured.
- "Fury will never fight again"? We can only hope.
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