West Ham dream dead and buried by Saints’ six-feet wonders
Southampton rekindled their best days under Ralph Hasenhuttl to give David Moyes food for thought at West Ham. January signings needed.
It is a niche, strange statistic, but not necessarily a meaningless or irrelevant one. Before Boxing Day 2021, Southampton had last taken the lead three separate times in the same match in December 2018. A 3-2 win over Arsenal at St Mary’s felt like a sign of things to come in terms of the energy, mentality and entertainment that underpinned Ralph Hasenhuttl’s first victory as manager.
They have needed to get back to those simple but effective times for too long. Saints have been coasting, stumbling rather than marching through the last few seasons in search of identity and purpose. A side that finished between 6th and 8th in the Premier League from 2014 to 2017 has recorded bottom-half placings in each of the subsequent four campaigns. These three brilliant, battling points only lift them as high as 14th, yet more important was the sense that Southampton found their true selves over the course of 90 volatile minutes.
Their three previous wins this Premier League season came across four games in mid-October and early November. Leeds and Watford were vanquished first in relegation six-pointers, before Aston Villa deemed defeat on the south coast to be a sackable offence. Southampton won each of those games by a scoreline of 1-0. The binary boredom did not suit them.
Then again, that was certainly preferable to the six fixtures that followed. Three draws and three defeats since returning from the November international break had dimmed the lights again. Southampton once led the hopeful group of teams tapping at the glass ceiling; such aspirations were shattered long ago and replaced by the vague threat of the Championship.
West Ham have undergone essentially the opposite transformation. As recently as 2019/20, they were five points from the drop. A season later they had risen from 16th to 6th. David Moyes was on the verge of forcing his way into the VIP seats again, a decade or so on from his Everton exploits. But those dreams already look to be dissipating.
Dismal West Ham performance and result today. Team’s league form since Moyes declared they were in the top 4 race after beating Liverpool: P7 W1 D2 L4. And also lost a Carabao Cup quarter final. Stating the obvious (again) but desperately need quality reinforcements in January.
— Dan Silver (@dansilver_) December 26, 2021
Injuries have derailed them defensively. Before the latest round of international fixtures, the Hammers were 3rd with a better than average backline: only six teams had conceded fewer goals. Yet the side that had allowed 12 goals in 11 games has now let in 11 in their last six. Angelo Ogbonna, Kurt Zouma and Aaron Cresswell would be difficult absences to deal with individually. Losing all three has robbed West Ham of their stability, leadership and progression in possession.
Boxing Day began with rumours of interest in Lloyd Kelly of Bournemouth but he alone cannot mask these deficiencies. The chasm between defence and midfield was exposed in the build-up to the first goal, the central defensive partnership between Issa Diop and Craig Dawson was ruthlessly shredded by Armando Broja for the second and the third was West Ham simply tasting their own medicine, expertly prescribed by set-piece king James Ward-Prowse.
January reinforcements are absolutely needed but so many of the issues are systemic. Corners were floated directly towards Fraser Forster, who is many things but small and poor in the air are absolutely not among them. At one stage he was able to punch one delivery before catching it. For another, he launched another great fist onto the ball before Kevin Friend inevitably pulled play back for a Saints goal kick. The cameras then cut away to Dawson, floored and with a bloodied piece of cotton wool already shoved up his nostril, like an obvious continuity error in a budget film.
The one corner that West Ham directed away from the Southampton goalkeeper delivered their first equaliser. Forster pushing half-time substitute Michail Antonio back onside for the striker to redirect Dawson’s header into the net was sublime story-telling.
West Ham did well to battle back twice, the second time through Said Benrahma’s well-worked goal, but Southampton rarely felt out of control. Forster was able to time-waste freely before the half-hour mark in the knowledge that the hosts would rush and concede possession again soon after anyway. The Hammers created few legitimate chances aside from the ones they took. Saints rallied three times away from home to score three goals of real quality in their own right. Broja was a handful – to complete five dribbles and be fouled four times with his frame is not particularly normal – and Ward-Prowse gives them a fighting chance in any game if given enough dead-ball situations.
They are not safe, nor are West Ham done. Southampton are seven points clear of the relegation zone and the Hammers sit in between Tottenham and Manchester United in 6th, but the fact both have two games in hand and are building momentum makes even that position look particularly precarious.
Hasenhuttl has something to build on, a familiar sense of vigour to harness. Moyes must raise his players and drag them from this nadir. There is absolutely a disconnect in the squad right now, highlighted by the moment in the 15th minute when Diop either took a heavy touch or made too soft a pass to Rice, unpinning a hand grenade that he simply waited for his captain to take to safety under pressure. The midfielder managed it in one of his least effective games, but the audible groans around the London Stadium rather summed up the mood. That top-four challenge that Moyes predicted a couple of months ago is already out of the question; time to reset both expectations and performances.
