Match Day Thread West Ham United vs Southampton 25/09/2016 4pm Kick-off

We might be a big European team this season

 

Ssssh. No-one else might notice.

 

.. and so it's off to the Promised Land, I wonder how we will cope?

 

I think it's a great time to play them. Expectation should be in them. They beat Inter away and are at home. I fancy us.

 

It's not so strange, Ian. Although, after all the relative success since the club was taken over, and especially in the last couple of seasons, you would have expected a little more coverage. During the last couple of seasons there were points in time where Saints were THE team to be talked about. But for some reason it is back to absolutely nothing again, or what little there is is media regurgitated uninformed rubbish. After several seasons of news articles and documentaries, the best most pundits can vaguely come up is that they have a good system down there.

As for today, I was fairly confident of a win, but I thought it would be a narrow one. I also thought Payet would be over his Euro slumbers [have you noticed how so many Euro stars have got off to a dodgy start this season.?], but thankfully it appears he was ineffective.

Whispering Dave has openly admitted that he's not a fan of Euro style football overall, as played by Puel's teams, so although he'll occasionally mention we've played this or that piece well, he'd rather see faster, more direct football, I believe. Me, I prefer to see winning football. If it is really entertaining on top, then that's a bonus. Football is sport, not a variety show.
The glamour teams have shifted their weight and money around, and have moved the balance back towards their favour a little more again. Not that it is ever a level playing field, but last season the scales weren't tipped in their favour far enough, it seems. I feel Saints should be looking at winning every game they are involved in. If that takes them to a UEFA place then so be it. It they win a cup or title, then so be that too. No limits.

 

So do I, although a large proportion of that confidence is due to my ignorance of them. Which is a bad thing. Hopefully, Saints will know all about them before the match, because otherwise they probably will afterwards.

 

I completely missed today's match, apart from the reaction. So if you're like me, you may like this link to the whole match:

http://www.fullmatchesandshows.com/2016/09/25/west-ham-united-vs-southampton-highlights-full-match/

I'm off to watch it now. Cheers

 

Feet up and light a cigar while you watch!

 

What a brilliant result! Wanted Austin to ram the porn kings words down their throat n he did just that!

Another clean sheet, 3 goals away from home, a JWP goal from open play and up into the top half!

Onto Israel we go!!

 

Well I have only just caught up with the result. I am in the Pennines, which is great, but our room has no TV and there was no reception on my phone. Free wifi though. Sounds like great second half. Will see if I can get MOTD 2 on my phone.
All this fresh air makes it likely that I will fall asleep before we are on, mind you. Zzzzz!

 

And another little factoid mentioned during today's commentary (so if it's wrong take it up with Sky). The last time WHU failed to score was against us in February.

Vin

 

Once the cagey bit is over, its pretty fine viewing!

 

I'm taking up smoking cigars again if I'm still alive past 85. They're to bump me off with excessive whisky.

Anyway, yes I'm off to watch. I'll imagine the cigar.!

 

I watched the game when Celtic almost let Hapoel knock them out of the Champions League. The standard of football from both teams was around League 1 at best. I hope Claude looks at more games than that one, as I'm sure they can't be that bad all the time!

 

Also forgot how much fun it is reading through the entire game on here after I know the result

A lot of people disappointed with Cedric but BBC live text said he was brilliant... or was it a 1st/2nd half thing?

 

With us being only game we should get a decent amount of highlights tonight

 

He was showing signs of fatigue so it was a timely subbing, I notice the first thing Cuco did was to force Payet to dive and get a yellow! That's class.

 

Really surprised by west ham today.

Not so much by the way they played but the players that played. After all the summer transfer hype, I was expecting to see a few more 25m pound players

Undone by a crocked 4m pound player.

Pretty bubbles in the air.

 

I thought he had a good game but was let down by poor attacking decisions. Went for goal when should have cut it back.