Tuesday, December 29, 2020

New on Sports Illustrated: West Ham United-Southampton Preview

West Ham boss David Moyes believes his team's resilience to twice come from behind against Brighton and Hove Albion puts them in good stead heading into Tuesday's clash with Southampton.

The Hammers drew 2-2 at home to Brighton on Sunday, despite the Seagulls dominating much of the proceedings, though West Ham ultimately managed the same number of attempts on target as the visitors.

Southampton, meanwhile, were held to a goalless draw by Fulham in their Boxing Day outing, and Moyes is aiming to take the bright points from the Brighton game into Tuesday's fixtures.

"The positives I take from it were that we were resilient, we kept at it and we eventually found a way of getting something out of it, but it wasn't anything close to how I wanted it to look like or how I think we can play," Moyes told West Ham TV.

"I thought we were really disappointing in a lot of aspects today, but we're in a little period just now when the injuries that we've had are just starting to catch up on us and we're muddling through in certain areas."

On the other hand, Ralph Hasenhuttl knows his team will need to fight through the fatigue, though the Saints will have an extra day of rest compared to West Ham, who the former RB Leipzig coach is yet to beat.

"We have never won against them so far and never taken points, so we have to do it better than we have in the past," he said.

"We have to be concentrated for this tough game, find the right players to choose and hopefully we can cause them some issues.

"To the Liverpool game we have a little bit longer to recover, but this game comes quickly."

PLAYERS TO WATCH

Southampton - Danny Ings

Saints talisman Ings missed out against Fulham due to a hamstring injury and his absence was felt. Should he be fit to return, he will be aiming to end a three-match run without a goal.

West Ham - Tomas Soucek

Soucek, who netted the second equaliser against Brighton, has scored more Premier League goals via corner situations than any other player (five). Indeed, it is two more than opponents Southampton have scored in that time (three).

KEY OPTA FACTS

- Southampton have lost their last two Premier League home games against West Ham, as many as they had in their previous 15 against them at St Mary's or The Dell (W7 D6 L2).

- West Ham have won their final league game in just one of the last 11 calendar years (D3 L7), though that victory did come against Southampton in the Premier League in 2015 (2-1).

- Southampton have kept seven clean sheets in their 16 Premier League home games in 2020, last keeping more in a single calendar year at St Mary's in 2015 (8).

- Against no side has Southampton's Theo Walcott scored more Premier League goals than he has vs West Ham (6). However, he's not scored in any of his last five against the Hammers, with five of his six goals against them coming between 2011 and 2013.

- After scoring in 12 consecutive Premier League games, Southampton now failed to score in their last two in the competition. They last went three league games without a goal in September-October 2018 under Mark Hughes (five games).

No comments:

Post a Comment