West Ham were cut to pieces early on in this afternoon’s promotion derby with Southampton, with a porous midfield performance reminiscent of the worst days of Lopetegui’s era.
Another slow, cumbersome start gifted their opponents two early goals before the Irons even woke up. 1-3 down at half time was a fair reflection of Southampton’s dominance: Twenty six shots for West Ham and the lion’s share of possession all came to nothing as that dreadful, lethargic first half ended their 9 game unbeaten run.
Player ratings:
Hermansen 4 Poor first half and certainly culpable for the second Saints goal after finger-tip parrying a cross straight into Bree’s path for a wonder volley second goal. A good double save proved fruitless as Saints followed up with a third shot beating the Dane for their third goal. Ironically all three goals in the first half came off Hermansen, the Dane only really contributed to one of the three.
Walker Peters 3 Outnumbered as Saints overloaded their left for the first goal in minute number two: Ineffective defensively and made me long for Joel Veltman until he looked inspired with some twinkle-toed wing work and a superb goal after a right-left foot ball switch and a shot into the top left corner. Good going forward but well short defensively against his former team.
Mavropanos 4 Frantic last ditch defending couldn’t keep out Saints third goal. Looked terribly exposed by a non-existent midfield for most of the first half and for the Irons’ first two concessions. No connection with a series of inviting corners as the Saints look to have done their homework and efficiently blocked West Ham’s main goal threat.
Kilman 5 Poorly shielded by a porous midfield in West Ham’s dreadful first half. Almost scored the goal of the season, crashing the ball off the upright onto the ‘keeper’s shoulder from 30 yards. Other than that, harried and covered for his team mates and at least worked up a sweat.
Morato 5 Most of Saints’ action came down West Hams right in the first half, did ok. Subbed at ’45.
Engels first half corners created chaos but no goals
Engels 5 Went missing from his defensive duties as Saints took control: Both he and Mukasa looked overwhelmed as Southampton raced into a two goal lead: Still good with his set pieces with three perfect in swinging corners caused havoc as the Hammers tried to get back into the game. Last -minute headed flick could have levelled it but a tremendous save from Peretz kept West Ham out.
Kanté 6 Lively going forward with driving runs and deft wing work – shots and all action if lacking in touch. Continued with lung busting runs in the second half, putting Taty through for a shot on goal well blocked.
Mukasa 4 Invisible early on as West Ham’s midfield looked over run once again with Saints playing through the middle. One shot blocked but doesn’t look well suited to this deeper, more central midfield role. Soucek would have been better starting in that central midfield role with Mukasa ahead. Going forward, the midfielder looked better, at least trying to play football in these in difficult conditions.
Bowen 5 Suspicion he may have gone missing from his defensive duties for Saints’ first goal as Walker Peters was outnumbered. Going forward, looked to have the beating of his defender but every cross hit an opponent. Superb cross in the dying seconds could have levelled it as Engels’ header was brilliantly saved by man of the match Peretz.
Castellanos 4 Invisible early on but missed a sitter from a shot rebounding off the ‘keeper which was later adjudged offside anyway so wouldn’t have counted. Other than that an anonymous first half with zero service. Did at least put himself about more in the second half with a couple of half chances.
Solomon 2 First action of the game was to pick up a yellow card on ’17. Zero impact on the first half. Surprising to see him emerge for the second half with Austbø on the bench. Couple of runs into blind alleys but ineffective. Subbed 62′
Subs:
Scarles 3 on for Morato at half time: Only Nuno knew why. One terrible challenge on Matsuki could easily have seen him booked immediately. Did look tighter, (according to the radio commentator), on Bree than Morato did in the first half. One decent defensive tackle but
Pablo 3 for Solomon 62′ Buzzed around with the usual touch of a hippo in concrete boots but made some good tackles.
Soucek 6 for Mukasa 62′ Blocked up the midfield better and should have started. Blasted in a shot in the 93rd minute from the edge of the box as the ball bobbled loose.
Austbo 5 for Walker Peters 74′ Couple of driving runs further up the pitch, with more impact than Solomon.
Piroe 1 for Kanté 74′ Invisible.
about time we had a regular mark for this useless manager….i wonder how often he would have got even 4 or above? another shockingly negative start, with 1 up front, subs that made no sense and gave over control when we still looked getting back in it…1/10 today, and surely, surely, surely tme for the men in white coats?
Midfield was outsmart & outrun,and team in general was not marking his man during saints attacks, so central defence was compromised. Are these players good enoug to go up I don’t think so maybe playoffs,certainly not for the premiership.
Wake up Westham players as i am not impressed with your commitment and attitude,especially in the first few minutes of each game.
Nono needs to be sacked.
Time for nuno to go he is like a wet blanket has no idea how to.set up a attacking team before people start on about the big scoring games we have won that was not because we were great on the day its that the other teams were worse than us he sticks with players that are clearly not up for it they just want to pick up their.large wage packet at the end of the week nuno included.the saints made us look like a very poor sunday pub team in the first half tatty is a waste of space just waiting to move on.we have players that are hungry.to play and give their all but he sticks with players that look like they have no intrest he bangs on about how we need to start games better but its jus words no wonder nottingham forest fans were glad to see the back of him and we should do the same heis clearly not up for the chalenge we should be top of this leaque by a good few points instead we are strugling to stay in the play off postions if things dont change ASAP.i doubt we will even make them at the end of this season
I believe we have the best squad in the league. The problem has to be the manager. What would happen at other clubs if their team consistantly doesnt show up for half a game ?
Nuno f–ks up again with tatics and team selection.
NOT Good Enough
Another shambles of tatics and team selevtion by nuno we were religated by them at the end of last season and hes getting wrong again now we should be beating the likes of southampton this is costing us points just as it did ladt season nuno needs to get his act togeather and quick we are a target for every team in the championship we continue to drop points like this we will be lucky to make the playoffs if we dont make it back up we may well end up liike lecister city and find with all the players we would without any doubt loes it could be a very hard time ahead just look how bad things have got for leister city that may well be us if things dont change dam quick
Usual thing – NES still doesn’t know what his best team is. He needs to go to put us out of our misery.
Agree for the most part, except for Engels corners. I think when you’ve tried five in a row to the near post and seen every single one go the same way (cleared) it might be time to see if you can reach the middle of the box at least. Perhaps Bowen can take him aside during training and offer some advice there. Also, the totally clueless interaction between Engels, Kilman and Mavrapanos is infuriating to watch. A protracted series of five yard passes between those three simply gives the opposition time to get organized and never ends with anything creative. Nuno is never going to get over himself and do what is best for West Ham, and for that reason, unless they make some inspired signings in January, they may be doomed to the playoffs.
The new “tinker man” has to go. A side wins and he tinkers. We need a manager who can get us out of the Championship. Proven to do so. Sean Dyche is the only one who has the proven qualifications. Having done the job so often.
I have said it before: this season will not be a cakewalk for West Ham, & this result proves it. WHEN are we going to get hold of a game in the early stages & stop our opponents going ahead ? Even against 9 man Lincoln we didn’t look like achieving this ! Our squad is NOT the best in the Championship, but it can play better than this & achieve promotion, one way or another. But, to do it demands that we do not start off by giving our opponents goal advantage over & over again.
I have just watched this game nunos team selection and substitutions are shocking I have no idea what he is coaching the midfield and defence. Please stop saying we have a great manager WE DON’T. This was the best performance by scarles I have seen to give him 3 is a joke.
footnote the refereeing performance was diabolical and this was a premier referee.
Martin said it time and again We cant keep conceding 2 or 3 goals as in the majority of games weve played and expect to win matches being in the top 2 just wont happen Nuno just dosnt seem to be able to rectify the problems we have
We will not be going anywhere with this awful performance
We just can not afford to keep letting in these early goals
We seem to be chasing the game all the time
Need desperately to sort the defence out,made loads of chances to get back, and win games, but today lacking a striker that can find the net
Taty needs to be rested,Pablo must start,
It is just not good enough especially at home
I do really feel we do not have good enough players in defence.If we can’t stop these early goals, it is looking bleak to me
I have said it before: this season will not be a cakewalk for West Ham, & this result proves it. WHEN are we going to get hold of a game in the early stages & stop our opponents going ahead ? Even against 9 man Lincoln we didn’t look like achieving this ! Our squad is NOT the best in the Championship, but it can play better than this & achieve promotion, one way or another. But, to do it demands that we do not start off by giving our opponents goal advantage over & over again.
Fed up with Taty, the bloke has been poor this season and today offered absolutely nothing. Because we’d had poor starts It felt like the poor start was due to us wanting to overcompensate and have a better start offensively. Forward players didn’t get back to defend early on and it meant were left wide open at the back.
Slow start, poor defending, referee is stealing a reputation, mainly our own fault but amazingly we should have at least drawn as at least at some point in every game we seriously outperform the opposition. We just need to cut out the self harm stuff.
This is West Ham; the self harm is in our DNA !