West Ham hope to build on their mid-week EFL Cup victory, taking on Southampton at the London Stadium on Sunday.
When a team is mired in the bog of poor form, often all it takes to drag them out is one modest, scrappy result. When West Ham brought Dimitri Payet on as a substitute, poised to make an impact against the might of League 2’s Accrington Stanley in the EFL Cup on Thursday, they had to wait until the 96th minute for him to do so. In typical Payet fashion, the mode of delivery was a sumptuous free kick, curled inside the post as the time eked away.
1-0, thanks to that goal, ending a four-game losing streak; a much needed reprieve, even if the Hammers had been dire for the preceding 95 minutes. It was not a convincing victory, but as the saying goes for misfiring strikers; sometimes all they need is for one to go in off their backside, and then the goals will flow freely. This league cup win, against hugely inferior opposition, represented the match equivalent of this notion. This weekend Slaven Bilic will see whether his team can use it to move on from their awful start to the season.
Southampton, while not wallowing in a bog as deep and rank as the Hammers’, have also started the season firmly in ho-hum form. One win, two draws, and two losses place them just two points above West Ham. Claude Puel has made a quiet start to his tenure at St Mary’s, although they too won in the EFL Cup midweek.
Key Battle: Jose Fonte vs Michail Antonio
Fonte, the Portuguese European Cup winner, is the first name on the Saints teamsheet; the centre back is the captain, team anchor, and the club’s best defender. He is a fine passer, is diligent in his positioning, and is very strong in the air. This last point is the crucial one; West Ham’s Michail Antonio, the equal-top scorer in the league, has punched in all five of his goals with his head.
Antonio is a hulking bundle of muscle, and has an impressive leap, but even he wouldn’t have pictured usurping his teammate Andy Carroll as the best header of the ball not just at West Ham, but in the entire league. It’s as much due to his ravenous enthusiasm for the physical skirmishes of the game as it is his physical virtues that he appears so often, and so effectively, at the far post to meet a lofted ball. He is in remarkable airborne form, and Fonte’s job as the aerial chief and defensive organiser is to make sure Antonio is met with equal relish by a Saint at every headed contest.
Team News
West Ham finished their mid-week league cup match victorious but bruised. Arthur Masuaku picked up a knock and will not be available for the Southampton game. With Aaron Cresswell still injured, a huge hole has appeared at left back, with few available to fill it. Winston Reid may be back and fit, but Bilic still has many more key players convalescing than not.
Southampton are close to being fully fit, with Jay Rodriguez set to return to the team this weekend. Puel played a close-to full strength team against Palace in the cup mid-week, but will welcome back Fraser Forster and Virgil van Dyke to the starting XI.
Head-to-Head and Previous Meeting
Historically, Saints have a losing record against West Ham, winning 47 ties, drawing 46, and losing 73. More recently, Southampton have won just two of the last eight league meetings with West Ham. Their last match against the Hammers, however, was a hard-fought 1-0 victory, at home.
Prediction
As things stand, any team can genuinely hope to profit against West Ham’s defence. The Hammers have one clean sheet in their last eight league fixtures, and unless a violent turnaround is executed, Southampton won’t expect to be shut out. West Ham’s attack, however, is certainly capable and, with Payet, anything can happen. 3-2 to West Ham.
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