Having secured our Premier League survival following the entertaining 3-3 draw with Bournemouth last weekend, Southampton were hoping to return to winning ways on Saturday as we made the trip to the London Stadium to face West Ham United.
With manager Ralph Hasenhuttl presumably putting the likes of Fraser Forster, Jack Stephens and Mohamed Elyounnousi back in the proverbial shop window as they came back into the starting XI, the hosts took a pretty deserved lead early on in the first half.
Second half was a different story as the changes gave us new impetus and we showed significant improvement, but with a failure to turn our chances into shots on target, West Ham scored twice against the run of play to take a comfortable 3-0 victory.
Speaking to saintsfc following the game, former Celtic midfielder Stuart Armstrong admitted it was a disappointing day as he knew our performance hadn’t been what it should’ve.
“I think it was a disappointing day for us overall, especially out of possession. We struggled to get close to them, put pressure on them which we’re normally quite good at as a team. With the ball, we had some good moments and some good spells. On another day, perhaps a chance goes in and it changes the game. I think in the end not taking our chances and not dominating the game cost us. That’s the Premier League for you. No matter how the game is going a team can break away and punish you. That’s what happened today. Even at 1-0 we had that feeling that we could get back into the game but when it goes to 2-0 and then 3-0 it summed up a disappointing day for us. Today was just the complete opposite to what we’ve been performing and that’s very disappointing so let’s hope it’s an off day and we can make amends next week.”
A bit of an ‘after the Lord Mayor’s Show’ feel to things, but with survival secured maybe not a surprise given how Hasenhuttl has been pushing the group recently.
