West Ham’s 3-0 win against Saints on Saturday was Ralph Hasenhuttl’s biggest defeat since he took over last December.
Here are five things we learned from the game:
1. Fraser Forster made his return:
After 495 days without playing for Saints, the goalkeeper was backing in the starting XI.
Given the scoreline, it would be easy to say that Forster had a dreadful match, but he wasn’t helped by his defence.
Van Valery’s wayward pass in the first half was picked up by Mark Noble who then slotted it through to Marko Arnautovic, leaving him to score from a one-on-one situation.
And another defensive mishap in the second half led to Ryan Fredericks beating the Saints keeper.
2. Mohamed Elyounoussi was back in the team:
Saints’ £16 million summer signing has had a tough time forcing his way into the team this season.
He hadn’t played since the Arsenal defeat back in February but found himself in Hasenhuttl’s line-up for the West Ham defeat.
After a half-decent showing in the first half, where he had a good chance to score, the Norwegian struggled to make any kind of impact after the break.
3. Saints already on the beach?
After the high of beating the drop last weekend, Saints failed to carry that momentum into yesterday’s 3-0 drubbing.
They were second best in every department, with it looking like some players were already thinking about their summer plans.
Hasenhuttl insisted in the week that he didn’t want his players’ motivation levels to drop but given this match had nothing riding on it, that was always going to be a tough ask.
4. Nathan Redmond showed why he is favourite to win Player of the Year:
Redmond came on at half time and immediately made a difference to the Saints attack.
His ability to run at the defence caused West Ham all sorts of problems, with the winger probing the Hammers’ goal with a couple of shots.
Redmond’s levels have remained consistent throughout the season and he continued his good form yesterday despite the defeat.
5. Defensive injuries scupper Hasenhuttl’s plans:
The Saints boss deployed his preferred 4-2-2-2 system at West Ham without any luck.
However, Hasenhuttl intimated afterwards that he would have rather gone with five at the back.
Given that both Jannik Vestergaard and Maya Yoshida are currently unavailable, Saints are left with only Jack Stephens and Jan Bednarek as recognised centre-halves.
This meant that he had to go with four defenders, which, despite being his favoured formation, is yet to work with any great success.
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