It was a different and far more positive performance by Ivan Juric's Saints side than under his predecessor, but despite the more attacking style employed the result was the same as most of those achieved before.
Iven Juric took his place in the Southampton dug out for the first time and his first line up saw little real change, in came Lesley Ugochukwu to add power and steel to the centre of the midfield and up front Tall Paul Onuachu also got a start.
On the bench there was no place for Jack Stephens, nor Ben Brereton Diaz.
From the kick off it was clear that the team may not have changed much, but the style certainly had and throughout the match you could see the players were certainly more comfortable that they had been with Russell Martin's possession football style.
When the ball needed clearing it was cleared and when Saints were not in possession they pressed and the good news was that we can defend and we can create chances, sadly on this occasion though, we could not convert them.
The best chances fell to Tall Paul who had a succession of headers, but on each of them he failed to get any real power or direction, although one needed a great save to keep the scores level.
It was a very even contest, the Hammers were there to do a job and they didn't lay down and die, but when they hammered on our door we were up to the task, we worked hard to keep it tight and we worked hard to block shots when West Ham did get a chance, although in the first half it took the bar to keep things level.
A moment of controversy came when Guido Rodriguez was shown a red card following a challenge on Kyle Walker-Peters, but that was rescinded after the referee looked at the monitor, in fairness it was the right decision.
The one goal of the game came in the 59th minute when Jared Bowen got a real poachers goal poking home from close range.
So a disappointing result for Southampton, but a positive performance, Ivan Juric promised death metal football and we got a spirited performance where we moved the ball round quickly and were not afraid to play the ball forward quickly, Saints fans could go home disappointed by the result but not the performance.
There were some outstanding performances from those who either looked disillusioned under Russell Martin or who never really got a chance.
Kyle Walker-Peters looked a different player from the one we saw in the previous games this season, he marauded forward and was at the heart of most of the chances we created.
In the centre of the midfield Big Les Ugochukwu, showed why Chelsea rate him so highly, he was big, strong and refused to be bullied, most teams in this league have big powerhouses in the centre of the midfield, Big Les looked the part and hopefully we will keep him for the rest of the season.
Up front Tall Paul had his best game for the club, he battled hard and had the bulk of our attempts on goal, it was his best performance in a Saints shirt and just about the firt that he has played in a team that suited his style, under Russell Martin there was no point in playing him, he would rarely see the ball, but now under Ivan Juric he could resurrect his career at St Mary's, if there was one criticism it is that his headers lacked direction and a little power, they were too close to the keeper, but that is to be expected, he probably hasn't had a chance to head the ball for Saints since ironically our last game against West Ham almost 2 years ago, when he almost equalised with a late header.
Perhaps aside from the end result the only down side for Saints supporters was the use of substitutions, we had 3 changes where we brought on 2 players in each, the first on 61 minutes was a little strange given we had just gone 1-0 down, yes fresh legs were needed, but Yuri Sugawara is an attacking option and James Bree more defensive, that was a little strange.
Likewise in the second tranche of changes, Tyler Dibling for Mateus Fernandes was understandable, Fernandes has run his heart out, but Kamaldeen Sulemana for Adam Armstrong was another strange one, Sulemana has done little for this club in two years, yet he gets another chance, perhaps the guile and experience of Frazer Richardson would have been better.
The last change on 87 minutes were both attacking, Ryan Manning again fresh legs on the left for KWP and Adam Lallana an attacking option on for the outstanding, but defensive Big Les.
I would say that Ivan Juric was having to rely on those coaches on his bench who were here under Russell Martin to advise him, both in the starting line up and also with the changes, with so little time to work with the squad he has probably not had time to work out who best suits what he wants to do.
But truth is this was not a good day for Saints elsewhere, with Wolves beating Manchester United and Palace & Everton both getting draws, safety slipped further out of sight for us, we are 9 points off Wolves who have a goal difference 15 better than ours so effectively 10, failure to beat Crystal Palace on Sunday could be the day that an uphill task becomes impossible.
The truth is that we should have replaced Russell Martin far sooner, perhaps after the defeat to Leicester, the 3rd defeat in a row after the debacle at Bournemouth, of course Ivan Juric was still in a job at that point, but he departed from Roma on 10th November the day after another debacle at Wolves, if Juric was always on our radar and we considered him our man, then we should have acted decisively then, that would have given him an extra 5 Premier League fixtures to turn things round, we got just 1 point from 5 games, if we had made that 4, then Juric would have a decent chance to keep us up.