ANOTHER ‘MUST WIN’ GAME
West Ham 1 Southampton 0
An international weekend. Time to reflect on the hand fate seems to be dealing West Ham United’s 2022-23 season as the back end of it prepares to unfold. The week ahead is not unlike the week before the break for the World Cup in which the Hammers managed to lose two Premier League games and to be knocked out of the League Cup.
Danny Ings is selected ahead of Michail Antonio to start, in spite of his out and out role as an old-fashioned six yard box striker. Well good luck with that. And good luck with not having scored a goal in the first fifteen minutes of a League game this season. So the first thing to be done is to assiduously count out those fifteen minutes and hope that the opposition, in this case Southampton, don’t raise their game sufficiently to breach West Ham’s defence.
In terms of non-events, all goes to plan. There were plenty of games on yesterday’s ’Match of the Day’ featuring sides who scored early goals in their fixtures, throwing caution to the four winds, but this afternoon West Ham and Southampton don’t add to that list. It is at times almost as if the players taking part in the game don’t want to forsake its sterile quality. Hammers look compact at the back, but don’t break out of defence with anything more than a cautious enthusiasm about them. Southampton are clearly happy to settle for a point which won’t actually lift them off the bottom of the table where they currently reside, and their third new manager this season, Rubén Sellés, like the two accents in his name, is profoundly acute in his technical area.
In the 25th minute Jarrod Bowen wins a free kick as he attempts to break free of the Southampton defence. Kehrer takes it, curling in a perfectly weighted cross which Aguerd rises highest to, burying the ball in the corner of the net, beyond Bazunu. There then follows four minutes of VAR indecision whilst the crowd chew their nails, the question being was Aguerd offside when the cross was hit into the area. The linesman appears to have raised his flag, not quite in the spirit of the procedure, and the referee seems initially ready to disallow the goal for a minute infringement that he could not possibly have seen from where he was. And the wait goes on. The ref appears to have lost the sound on his headphones. The West Ham players who had galloped to the centre circle are wandering back to the Southampton penalty area in fear of the disallowed goal. The managers exchange looks. Kevin Nolan stares at his replay screen and looks at Mark Warburton, who shrugs his eyebrows.
Finally the referee draws his invisible etch-a-sketch in the sky before pointing back towards the centre circle… Goal! Now it’s a race to see who can catch Aguerd before he stops to gesture at the crowd. Rice and Benrahma are quickest off the mark, Benrahma shading the race to end up under Aguerd’s left elbow.
Just how important is that goal? The dearth of genuine opportunities this far suggests this might be the only score of the afternoon. Nevertheless, just before half time a tricky run from Bowen heading in from the left ends with his stylish crosstown traffic swivel and a shot that curls past Bazunu and off the crossbar before going out of play. Another crossbar moment for Clips tomorrow.
The second half sees the introduction of Antonio, Fornals, Downes and Cresswell as West Ham first seek to add to their lead and then desperately pile men back to defend it. Southampton’s giant substitute Paul Onuachu beats Zouma in the air as Ward-Prowse’s circling cross comes in, but his header comes back into play agonisingly off the crossbar and is cleared. And that, thankfully, is the last genuine serious goal action of the game.
Hammers’ fans are left to reflect on a nervous performance with little cut and thrust in the Southampton penalty area, but the clean sheet from a stirling defensive display that was necessary to make any goal a winner. Wednesday’s game against Newcastle, who have won again this afternoon and gone third in the Premier League, will be a different story.
1 Lucasz Fabianski, 33 Emerson, 4 Kurt Zouma, 24 Thilo Kehrer, 41 Declan Rice (captain), 27 Nayef Aguerd, 28 Tomas Souček, 11 Lucas Paquetá, 18 Danny Ings, 20 Jarrod Bowen, 22 Saïd Benrahma
Substitutes: 8 Pablo Fornals, 3 Aaron Cresswell, 9 Michail Antonio, 12 Flynn Downes
Goalscorer: Nayef Aguerd
