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Southampton V West Ham United The Verdict

This was on paper so far Saints toughest game of the season so far, it was never going to be easy, but the team came through it and were unlucky not to take all three points late in the game with the Hammers needing a goal line clearance to save a point.

West Ham arrived at St Mary's in the top three having had a barnstorming start to the season and they would have been fairly confident that they would claim all three points.

It is fair to say that there was probably not a Saints supporter in the ground who would have picked the team that Ralph Hasenhuttl chose, a sort of 4-1-4-1 formation with Romeu sitting between the defence and midfield and Stuart Adams as the lone striker.

But if the fans didn't agree with the starting line up, a look at the bench revealed that the manager had a lot of talent on the bench, even without injured Theo Walcott & Stuart Armstrong he could call on the likes of Jan Bednarek & Kyle Walker Peters.

Indeed those on the bench had only cost Saints a fraction less in transfer fees than those in the starting line up.

The hammers certainly had the lions share of possession during the game and Saints had to work hard to make sure that they didn't create anything of note. West Ham had plenty of possession, but the home side ensured that they had little of note in front of goal and in the main we held firm giving them few chances and those they had were mainly high and wide. Tino Livramento was again showing what a good signing he has been as the defence held strong.

The second half saw the game open out a little more, just after the break Ralph made his first change, bringing off Oriol Romeu and bringing on Ibrahima Diallo but Saints still held firm and as the game progressed got stronger, with James Ward Prowse leading by example.

In the 74th minute on came Armando Broja for Armstrong and a fresh pair of legs up front started to give Saints fresh impetus.

Firstly a great run and well placed low shot saw Broja beat the keeper only to see his shot come back off the post and then in injury time the Chelsea loanee saw his header from a corner hacked off the line to save a point.

The game ended in controversy, there is no doubt that former Saints loanee Antonio should have been given the second yellow, but the referee blew his whistle too soon, had he waited a second longer he would have seen the ball had fallen kindly for Saints and we were man for man on West Ham's defence, but the whistle was blown, West Ham can thank themselves lucky for that, Antonio certainly took one for the team as they say.

Altogether a good day at the office for Saints, it was always going to be a difficult game and we had to make sure that the visitors didn't use the pace of Antonio to rip us apart and we seemed to manage that, not pretty to watch as we had to chase the ball most of the game, but the first League clean sheet of the season was the first plus point.

The second plus point is that we took on and held a top third of the table side with a team missing some good players, some on the bench and some injured, showing the squad has got depth now.

Last season was one of two halves, the first with a full squad where we looked like we could achieve a top 10 finish and the second where with the squad stripped of 6-7 players through injury etc we struggled to put out 11 players with experience and the bench had an average age of about 18.

Hopefully this season will be different, it was always going to be a tough start, in the corresponding fixtures last season, the first 8 games saw us take only 2 points, so far we have already got 3 points and we have another 4 games left of this opening run to play.

Now we have to get a win on the board, sadly with the next game being up at Manchester City it doesn't look like being this coming Saturday, but after that we have a chance against both Wolves and Leeds United at home, with only Chelsea being tough.

When we have completed the opening 8 games we start the real work of the season, we play the teams who are going to be around us and if we win a few games then we will soon move up the table.

In the main this season will not be defined with our opening 8 fixtures but will be about the next 12 games that will take us up to the end of the year.

But in the meantime we have made a solid start to the season with three draws in the first 4 games, it could have been and should have been better, but given that the opening four saw only 1 point from these games last term, the fact that we have 3 shows we are making progress.

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