Southampton welcome West Ham to St Mary’s on Saturday in their second game of the 2017/18 campaign and their second competitive home match under Mauricio Pellegrino, after a goalless draw against Swansea City last week.
The new Argentine boss will be hoping to fare better against the Hammers than his predecessor, Claude Puel, who suffered defeat back in February at the hands of Slavan Bilic’s team.
In the last meeting, Southampton handed a debut start to their new signing from Napoli, Manolo Gabbiadini. The Italian lined up with Sofiane Boufal and Jay Rodriguez in attack with support from James Ward-Prowse and Steven Davis in midfield. Spaniard, Oriol Romeu was protecting a defensive line of Maya Yoshida, Jack Stephens, Cedric Soares and Ryan Bertrand with Fraser Forster between the sticks.
Everything started so well for Saints when Jay Rodriguez lifted a ball over the defence to find the run of Manolo Gabbiadini. The forward didn’t disappoint as he blasted a left-footed drive past the helpless Darren Randolph to open his Saints account within 12 minutes of his debut.
Unfortunately, that was as good as it got for the Saints as despite some decent passing moves, they were unable to stop West Ham equalising two minutes later. Pedro Obiang picked the ball up in the midfield and played a defence-splitting pass through to Andy Carroll who produced a neat finish past Fraser Forster.
The Saints defence, which had already leaked ten goals in their previous three games, looked shaky towards the end of the half and were eventually punished a minute before the break. Obiang picked up a loose ball after Saints cleared a corner and, after a few touches, the Spaniard unleashed a low drive which found its way through a crowded penalty area before nestling in Forster’s net.
Although Saints started the second half brightly and tested Darren Randolph with a few tame efforts, they weren’t able to turn chances into goals. The tie was all but over eight minutes after the restart when West Ham were awarded a soft free kick on the outside of the Saints penalty box. Despite the tight angle, West Ham captain Mark Noble swung a low ball onto the penalty spot which struck Steven Davis and found its way past Forster.
With Saints lacking confidence, they were unable work themselves back into the game as it finished 1-3, marking West Ham’s first victory in Southampton since November 2000.
Pellegrino will be confident that his team can avoid a repeat of this result on Saturday, when he will also be hoping to put an end to the goal scoring drought which has followed the team into the new season.
Given everything that has happened off the pitch in previous weeks, Saints fans will be hoping to get their season underway with three points.
