Southampton 3 Irons 2
It started going wrong befkick off when Winston Reid was stretchered off after injuring himself in the warm-up.
It went downhill from there before the Hammers were forced to stage a 10 man battle for an hour and were deprived of a brave point by a last minute penalty!
They can have no complaints about losing Marko Arnautovic in the 33rd minute when the Austrian chose to elbow Jack Stephens with his left arm after the Southampton defender had passed the ball forward.
It was a poor decision by the £24 million signing who came with a reputation for having attitude and he will now miss three games through suspension.
There was worse to come when Jose Fonte – back on his old turf – was caught goalside of Davis, pulled the No 8 back by his left shoulder and Tadic scored from the spot.
It had been a shambolic first haf which saw Noble excape an onvious sendng off when launching a studs-up challenge when nowhere near the ball.
But Chicarito gave us hope right on the break, turning in the area , and shooting law into the crner of the net.
And how the team battled in the second half getting full reward when a brilliant Cresswell cross was power-headed down by sub Sakho and the lurking Hernandez grabbed his second goal.
The Hammers had shown as much spirit and courage in the second half as they had showed lack of ability and spirit before the break and it was a joy to behold.
They were having little trouble holding Saints out but a familiar old problem came back to haunt them when in injury time Zabaleta nudged Yoshida in the back inside the area and Charlie Austin stepped up to convert the spot kick.
The Hammers didn’t deserve that after the bravest of second haf performances but sadly – as was the case so often last season – another game got away because the lads couldn’t quite see the game out.
You’ve failed to mention that Tadic should have been sent off for a disgraceful tackle on Noble and Arnie also for elbowed. Was never a penalty at the end. A new centre back and what ever it takes for Carvalho before next week with Sakho and Hernandez up front together should see us improving.
That was a soft soft penalty.Stitch up of a penalty.
It was a great fightback though.Little pea is going to be a snip at the price we paid.
Im probably being far too positive though so i will vacate the place and leave it to the moaning windbags.
A far better performance than last week, by most of our players. Antonio came back to give the opposition a real problem very time he got the ball. How we’ve missed him. He worked well with Hernandes too.
Even Ogbonna and the rest of the defense were more stable, except for a few indiviual errors.
We can build on this with Lanzini coming back for Newcastle. First though we go to Cheltenham with I suppose some U23 players to give our well worked first team a rest.
Give Martinez and Holland a game against Cheltenham and Rice, make Collins Captain, Adrian in goal, Byram, Rice, Collins and Masuaku, Ayew, Snodgrass if he is still here, Holland and Fernandes in midfield, Martinez and Sakho up top. They should be more than good enough, if Hernandez wants to play put him with Martinez. Would Carvalho in our team have made the difference today ?