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Saints V West Ham United The Verdict

This was perhaps the worst performance of the season as in terms of what was at stake it was more disastrous than the Leicester City debacle.

This was a game that Saints needed to be up for, but it turned out it was West Ham who turned up ready for a battle on the pitch and in the first half Saints had no organisation, no leadership and no appetite for a fight.

At the back we were a shambles the only surprise was it took the Hammers so long to take the lead, time after time they might have had only two men in our box against our four, but we failed to mark them.

The goal on 37 minutes was classic Saints conceding, a man allowed to get a cross in and our defenders stood five yards off the scorer, in this case Haller who athough totally unmarked scuffed his shot into the corner.

The second half was a little better for Saints although like the first half we needed VAR to chalk off a goal for the visitors, we made chances, Danny Ings shot off the bar being the best of them, but we huffed and puffed with little real domination and chances created.

I said in the preview that the substitutions would be crucial and to be blunt ours were awful, bring in on Romeu for Redmond at half time was a negative step, on one hand we needed Romeu to try and bring some fight to the midfield, but on the other although Redmond is not in the best form, he still had the pace and ability to attack West Ham and create chances.

This was a change that highlighted how poor our defence is, time after time we had four men in our box marking fresh air whilst their two players in the vicinity were allowed to get shots in unchallenged.

But I found it incredible that we did not make another change till the final six minutes, in the later stages we had got a little bit of possession and creating chances, why did we not bring on another striker and throw the kitchen sink at them, Stuart Armstrong was not the man required on 84 minutes when taking off Shane Long effectively meaning at a time we were chasing an equaliser we only had one striker on the pitch, and when another striker was brought on in Che Adams on 87 minutes it was too little too late.

Ralph Hasenhuttl did not go for it with around 15 minutes to go as he should have, when Haller was removed from the game on 79 minutes we should have taken a defender off and gone with three up front and brought on Adams.

We were just too conservative and we did not have the fight needed whereas West Ham did.

We should not be too shocked, after all we all know how bad our defence is and it didn't disappoint again in letting us down at a crucial moment, Haller's goal being unmarked 12 yards out was criminal with so many defender marking fresh air.

The sad fact is that West Ham are a poor team, but they were organised, had defenders who could defend and rarely gave us the chances we gave them.

But we have to lick our wounds and pick ourselves up and go to Aston Villa next week, that is now even more important now.

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