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Lack lustre Irons fail to cope with lively Saints

Saints 3 Irons 1

By Hughie Southon

David Moyes played close to his strongest team but the Hammers could never cope with a Saints team that made nine changes from the weekend.

Mikey grabbed his first goal since New Year’s Day

Mikey Antonio raised our hopes with a tap in equaliser  – his first goal since New Years Day – but that was as good as it got for us tonight.

The south coast team opened the scoring with a wonder goal from distance from Perraud and after the equaliser they went ahead with a penalty from Ward-Prowse following a Dawson foul  with Broja clinching in the 95th minute.

The Irons looked pedestrian for long periods with – for me – Manu Lanzini being the brightest spark as he tried hard to create opportunities.

Zouma – despite some predictably boring booing – did well at the back and Diop, in for Cresswell produced another decent performance.

Tomas Soucek left the action in the second half when taking a boot in the face but looks likely to be okay for the match at Anfield at the weekend.

This, however,  was largely a lack lustre performance from the team although credit to  Saints who put in the shift and deserved the win.

 

About Hugh5outhon1895

Hugh Southon is a lifelong Iron and the founding editor of ClaretandHugh. He is a national newspaper journalist of many years experience and was Bobby Moore's 'ghost' writer during the great man's lifetime. He describes ClaretandHugh as "the Hammers daily newspaper!" Follow on Twitter @hughsouthon

8 comments on “Lack lustre Irons fail to cope with lively Saints

  1. Time for Moyes to go i’m afraid, done well to turn club around but his uncertainty in the transfer market is dragging us down.
    What looked like being a fantastic season could be well & truely over by Friday next week.
    Vlasic,& Benrahma…….wot a total waste of nigh on £60 mil
    Thanks for turning club round Moyes, but it is time for you to go !!!!!!

    • ………Which is exactly the sort of thing that Arsenal and Charlton fans were shouting at Wenger and Curbishley in recent years. Look at how well things went for them. Rather than coating off Vlasic (who’s played only a handful of EPL games, let’s not forget) and Benrahma, is it not better to get behind them and cheer them on to more consistent, higher level performances?

  2. Thought we were the better team until their first goal. Heads went down to easily after 1-0 down and deserved to lose.

    Thought Soucek injury was a blatant and dangerous swing of elbow/arm to face and unless my sight is even worse than I realise don’t understand why more is not being made of it.

    Summer transfers are sooooo, soooo important.

    • I disagree that our heads went down. Don’t forget we came back to level it. After which I thought we looked the most likely winners until the penalty decision. We all know Dawson lacks pace so why was he allowed to be isolated against Broja, a fast, strong, tricky forward? Also I think he pulled Dawson back before the tackle but that wasn’t even looked at. As for Souchek, I agree completely. Another thing that baffled me was that it was clearly a head injury so why did the Ref allow their attack to continue? Considering he stopped the game when the ball hit Broja in the face, why not stop it for a clear injury? But at the end of the day we just weren’t good enough to progress.

  3. Not really a surprise, even against Southampton ‘s second team, for the first half. Not creative enough again, relying on set pieces to score.
    Soucek seems to stand off opponents, pointing where other players to go all the time, instead of closing them down!

  4. Thought we were poor. and guess what you miss chances and give away a penalty you tend to lose games, Thought Antonio was poor again -and his decision making.. Season done -hope im wrong but dont think so.

  5. Considering Southampton haven’t been beaten at home since September I thought we did OK. Their first goal was unstoppable and we were in with a shout until 95th minute with their goalie producing great save.
    I think its ludicrous for Bella100 to demand Moyes must go. Will be asking for Pellegrini back next! The development of our club is a long term project and we have got to the upper reaches of league and into Europe ahead of schedule. Remember it took Man City 7 years and 1.5billion to win the league.
    We need to get our Academy delivering as even the top three have realised that the transfer market is not the way forward with routine squad players costing over £20million now

  6. I have to agree with Martin61. Early on it seemed to be all West Ham in attack. And the movements were slick. Looked like one if those games when it was only a matter of time. Pity it wasn’t.
    But it looks to me like the second game in a row where the manager has experimented with the set up. I know Cresswell was injured, but having a back three was unusual.
    And using Benrahma as a 2nd half sub, with a job to do, might work better than having him start. Anyhow, none of it is going to work out straightaway, the forwards need some straight shooting practice. and we all have to be patient and be satisfied how far we’ve come.

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