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

Why full-backs were key for superb Saints
By Kevin Kilbane
MOTD2 pundit

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/37469067

 

Blimey. Slightly over the top reaction. I'm sure those dyed-in-the-wool WHU fans went home and switched on their Sky Sports, still shaking their heads wondering where their identity went.

 

Rewatching the second half, and here's a good example of that. We'd played out from a goal kick, which got passed back to Romeu under some pressure. Can't see it, but he had Fonte to pass back to as a safety valve:



Instead, he squeezes a pass through to Hojbjerg, who then clips it to Cedric, who has space to run and an open pass to play. Now, suddenly, we're here:



We have four players forward with the defense forced to back off Tadic, while several West Ham players are miles up the pitch. Nothing ultimately came from it, with Tadic's throughball being ushered out of play, but one aggressive pass from Romeu and good touch from Hojbjerg and we were in a dangerous position.


And the second goal came from something we haven't been doing much of this year: pressing at the front. Cedric challenged a player; Redmond then challenged for and won the second ball. We gave it away, but immediately trapped the player on the ball and won it back...couple passes later and Tadic could walk it in.

 

I said to my son a few times during the game "We are getting from the back to front very quickly today" There were a few times where it would go defender to full back to midfielder and then one good pass would have one of our full backs or wingers in a great position all within a few seconds form our CB having the ball.

 

I think people were a little overly critical in the heat of the moment. He had a fine game overall.

 

West Ham embarrassed off the pitch again as Olympic Stadium staff use sound effects to drown out silence of 56,864 fans

http://www.caughtoffside.com/2016/0...d-effects-to-drown-out-silence-of-56864-fans/

 

I have to be honest and say that in the first half I was moaning at him because he was so frustrating. He didn't have a very good half of football but he was very good in the second half so I moaned at him for being Cedric instead

 

I like him. He's one of our European Champions, let's not forget that. Bertrand is a Club European Champion on the left. Fonte in the middle. Van Dijk's in good company.

 

Notice where the strikers are playing. Near post and far post making runs at the goal. NOT spreading out wide and acting like wingers which everyone kept moaning about.

 

Whether by design or habit, there has been a shift in our player positioning. You can see it most clearly with Austin; if the opposition has the ball for a long spell, he'll drift into a defensive position on the left wing. More often than not, though, he's staying high up the pitch and pretty central. Consequently, we carry a threat when we get the ball up quickly.

 

On Bien Sports after the game with Gray and Keys: they mentioned the Saints fans were singing towards the end - "we are Southampton and we have more fans than you". Thank you so much those Saints fans who attended for making my wife and laugh so much!!

 

The whole Austin tracking a full-back when he's barely fit enough to play a purely offensive role thing is a completely different subsection of insanity which is both interesting and puzzling and I could ramble all day about, not sure I get the stuff about Austin having been forced wide too often when we do have the ball though (and it is a very important distinction). Sure he ends up out there occasionally during the game, but no more so than I'd expect a striker playing in a pair up top would, and especially in a very fluid system.

Of course it still feels like for him specifically it would be far more optimal to be playing as the furthest advanced and most central player in some kind of wacky 4-2-3-1 formation (If such a thing even exists) but still, when we have the ball I don't think we're particularly forcing him out of his comfort zone too often at all.

 

I didn't call for it early. I called for it after he had a couple of "good" tackles at 2-0 up...

 

Yep. Just one point. The passing it around at the back is actually pretty important. It keeps us the ball. It works their forwards a little bit. It can take the sting out of a game (away from home in particular). It can frustrate opponents and fans.

The key is getting the right mix of it. I still cringe at St Mary's when I hear our fans bemoaning it at home. Doing that is better than giving it to the keeper or to a CB to launch a long one. First half we did that launch quite a bit and gave it to West Ham, as Claude mentioned in one of his interviews.

 

We also need to remember that he is a natural goal scorer and natural goal scorers naturally drift towards the goal when there is an attack. We'll see him him there more often than not when we attack.

 

Err.............. try non existent............

 

Sir Chalie Austin is the New Sir Rickie Lambert?

 

Yesterday's win gave me abundant feelings of pleasure & optimism

Frankly lads, bit worried.