“Football is not 45 minutes, football is 95 minutes and the second half was totally different,” Southampton manager Ronald Koeman told BBC Sport.
“The first 20-25 minutes of the second half we lost control. When Carroll came in he changed the confidence of the West Ham team, because the first 45 minutes Southampton were by far the dominant team.
“We spoke at half-time about how they will give a reaction, they will bring in Carroll, which means they will play the long ball, they will fight for second balls, they will be more aggressive, and then you need to concentrate.
“If you play so well for 45 minutes and you get some very good chances you have to score more than one and we didn’t.”
Koeman also took to his own official twitter account to tell Saints fans “Disappointed final result! If you play so well during 45 min you have to score more than 1 goal! More mistakes in 2 half! #WeMarchOn“
What gets me is WHY do we have to play ONE STYLE ??? ‘Carroll can’t play because he doesn’t play the new way’ ??? In case no one has noticed – Bilic usually plays two ways. A strong defence / quick strike when Away, and a more deliberate controlled build up when at Home. The IMPORTANT thing is that Carroll is not Sakho. This means when the preferred Home style is not working – Bilic can CHANGE the style to make something happen. Surely the comments on here should realise we keep Carroll because he is different to Sakho – if he was the same, Bilic wouldn’t have an option to change style during the course of a match.
Last season a lot of comments moaned that BFS had only way of playing – now we have more options – they are still moaning ???
The game changed because Lanzini took control held the ball up and never gave it away cheaply, this enabled Antonio and Valencia to run at them,
Carroll scored a simple nod in after Antonio did all the work but that’s what good strikers are all about,
Kevin we aren’t Carroll knockers all season we have said he must adapt to the new way of playing then he would benefit as well as us,
If he can hold the ball up as good as Sakho he will lead the England line,he just need to spend some time with Lanzini and Payet and learn to get soft feet on his first touch,
Zarate just needs to do the same and not try to be something he is not ( Messi ) play quick balls and move and track back when he looses the ball,
Great day to be a hammer fan
If there is something I’ve noticed it’s the fact other teams managers always talk about Andy Carroll in terms of his being our biggest threat. in my opinion he is the player other teams managers fea the most. They change their whole team to try and cope with him. the other teams defenders worry about him and I’ve noticed other teams become far more defensive. They set their teams out to try and cope with him. If Andy Carroll was playing against us for any other team he would be the player I would fear the most. I don’t understand the knockers. I’d much rather have andy Carroll for us than against us that’s for sure.
I’ll repeat myself (just for a change *wink-wink*) – it was good to see Carroll up his game a bit, and in particular Antonio step up as well BUT the main thing was taking Zarate off – who was having a shocker!
Ok , jaybs ,, so explain to me why Bilic was selecting him straight from injury when we had players fit enough to play . We had the players to suit the ” new system ” , but Carroll was selected anyway ,, or have you forgotten ??. The system changed when Carroll was fit .
Even when it is obvious that Carroll is a plus you still want to out him ,,, it is beyond belief to be honest … So according to you we should sell the most dangerous centre forward in the Premiership just to satisfy a minority of silly fans.!!M.
If you want us to finish the season in a European place the last thing you do is get rid of the best centre forward in the league …. No point in trying to convince a blind man .
To be fair Kevin I reckon Hodgson is a Carroll fan he always slips his name in when talking about a plan B, as I’ve said before, “Carroll is the best player in the prem to leave up front on his own when defending a lead because he needs an extra defender to mark him for 2 reasons, a/ he will 9/10 win the ariel ball, b/ he has the strength to hold off the second defenders challenge leaving him with just the keeper to beat”, basically, attacking teams have to leave a 1/3rd defender back which in turn leaves only 7 to attack 10
Oh ! , and to all you Journalists out there ;; he is a West Ham player ,, not an ex Newcastle or any other . About time to stop the cheap writing ., wouldn’t you say !!.
No because there is a little grammatical trip which helps people to stop using the same words over and over again
Here Kevin! because the guy is deluded, he is nothing but a bench player, do you seriously think when Sakho is fit that he will be the bench player, most of the time Carroll is on the pitch he simply does not fit into the style we play under Bilic! remember what we pay Carroll not a backup player wage!
England come on, I know Carroll as I said is deluded, wait until he is scoring the same number of goals as Vardy and Kane, he has not done that since he was in The Championship with Newcastle! Unless Hodgson wants to play the BFS way?
Mr Koeman rates him, then reduce the money we think we can get for him and ship him out quickly come January, don’t even think his mate BFS would even take him,
Where are all the anti ” Carroll ” brigade today ?? Strangely quite !,
We NEED Carroll , or has that obvious truth still not sunk in .
All the clever talk of who should play and where and when is basically tosh .
He terrorises defenders and is a massive plus to have at Upton Park .
Sell him at our own peril .. Don’t want to even think about Carroll scoring against us .
It is bonkers to even consider selling a big , dangerous player like Carroll . We have him in our squad and thank God for it .
Even the Watching Hodgson must be thinking of a re-call for Carroll . If he ain’t he must be stupid .
Kevin. Listen. There are people who prefer some players to others. It’s not about being anti or pro. It’s about expressing opinioms. Anthing else is silly tribalism and to be avoided OK?
“terrorizes defenders” A bit rich.I remember Smalling from Man U having more than Carroll’s measure.The stronger teams seem to always have someone to mark him and negate him because of the predictable way he plays.