Match Report by @westhamamerican
West Ham rediscovered their winning ways with a 3-0 victory today over Southampton at the London Stadium. Returning to Premier League play after a three week break, the Hammers overcame the bad memories of their embarrassing outing against Burnley, and took the fight to the visiting Southampton side with three early goals from Joao Mario and Marko Arnautovic to give their team an easy second half and good momentum heading into a challenging final two months of play.
David Moyes once again tapped Joe Hart for the start, and the England goalkeeper earned his first Premier League clean sheet since September. Also of note, this was Arthur Masuaku’s first game back from his six match ban. For the Saints, this was Mark Hughes first match in charge. Sitting only two points from relegation, Southampton desperately needs the “new coach bounce” that many Premier League teams have seen in the early days of new manager’s reign.
With the nightmare way that the Burnley match unraveled, it was important that West Ham found a goal early. A fast-paced counter, lead by Kouyate allowed the Senegalese midfielder to find Mario on the corner of the area. He smashed it into the corner of the net, beyond the diving grasp of McCarthy to get West Ham’s scoring started.
The 13th minute goal was followed up four minutes later as Mario crossed into Arnautovic, who needed two attempts to finally score, as McCarthy was unable to gather the initial header. Arnautovic easily scored on the rebound.
But in the final moments of the first half stoppage time, West Ham was able to find a third goal. Masuaku made the late cross to Arnautovic, who beat the defense and volleyed into net to earn a first half double.
For the second half, the most excitement was a stoppage time screamer from Aaron Cresswell that just hit the crossbar. Otherwise, West Ham focused on preserving the lead and keeping Joe Hart out of trouble. For the entire match, Southampton had no shots on target. Also, of note, no Hammers were booked by Jon Moss during the match. It was a very clean match, other than an early injury to Micheal Antonio. Antonio’s few recent goals have been a lone bright spot during a poor February. Hopefully he and James Collins will be available to help their club with a brutal finish.
Three of the next four matches are against top six clubs, including next Sunday’s visit to Chelsea. While West Ham is five points above the bottom three, the remaining schedule has few opportunities to pick up easy or certain points, and this season there is no guarantee that even 40 points will ensure safety. After the embarrassment that was the Burnley defeat, it was good for the club, the players, and the fans to have a complete and non-dramatic victory. But there will need to be some unexpected wins and draws in the coming weeks to give West Ham’s supporters a more comforting feeling as May approaches.
West Ham: Hart, Zabaleta, Ogbonna, Cresswell, Rice, Masuaku, Kouyate, Noble, Mario, Antonio, Arnautovic
Subs: Adrian, Evra, Fernandes, Hugill, Cullan, Pask, Diangana
Southampton: McCarthy, Soares, Stephens, Hoedt, Bertrand, Lemina, Hojbjerg, Tadic, Redmond, Austin, Gabbiadini.
Subs: Yoshida, Long, Carillo, Romeu, Ward-Prowse, Boufal, Forster
Ref: Jonathon Moss
Attendance: 56,882
