West Ham defeated Southampton 3-1 away from home at St Mary’s Stadium. 

Nuno shocked fans by making eight changes to the team that lost to Charlton Athletic. Lots of youngsters were named in the starting XI, including Fin Herrick, Airidas Golambeckis, Ezra Mayers, Lewis Orford, and Joshua Ajala.

It looked like another nightmare of an evening early on, as some poor defending allowed Leo Scienza to take advantage of a blocked shot and fire past Herrick into the bottom corner.

The rest of the first half was pretty even possession-wise, but the Hammers had the better of the opportunities. Joel Piroe looked lively; he had a couple of opportunities, including one he created for himself with a brilliant dribbling move that forced Peretz into a save. Piroe was also unlucky not to win a penalty in the first period after being tripped in the box by Jack Stephens.

The Hammers got back into the game through Josh Ajala. The 19-year-old was a threat down that left side throughout. However, it was a header from a Lewis Orford corner to score his first ever senior goal.

Last season’s U23 top scorer then notched his second goal of the night eight minutes into the second period. The ball was cleared to the edge of the box by a defender after Piroe’s ball in, and Ajala found the back of an almost empty net with a tidy finish.

Just a few minutes after that, Nuno brought on the big guns: Bowen, Castellanos, Engels and Solomon all entered the pitch. Immediately, the intensity went up, and we hunted for more goals, and it was more goals we got.

After 15 minutes of attacks, but failing to create anything too clear-cut, Taty made it 3-1 to the visitors. Golambeckis played a lovely ball in behind to Joel Veltman, who found the Argentinian in the box to tap home.

The fourth was vintage Jarrod Bowen. Mukasa did well carrying the ball through midfield to start the counter; he found Orford, who picked out Jarrod Bowen, and the England International did the rest. He cut inside just inside the box from the right-hand side and drilled it low into the bottom corner past Peretz.

Southampton had the ball for the majority of the last five minutes but couldn’t break the Hammers down. Manor Solomon had a strike from distance right at the end, but it was saved by the keeper.

A pretty simple win for the Hammers in the end; not many of us were expecting that.