Southampton 0-0 West Ham
Another unexciting game of football but, more importantly, another clean sheet. Finnish keeper Jussi Jaaskelainen deservedly received the man of the match award, which tells you all you need to know about the game. Even with a couple of slips and mistakes from James Collins, our defensive all-round performance was tremendous and I think that all Hammers fans would agree that we look very solid at the back. On the contrary, the club’s inability to sign cover for injury-stricken Andy Carroll was exposed once more. Our only fit striker (if you can call him that) to have played more than 2 minutes in the Premier League, Modibo Maiga, was once again very poor to say the least. I know that some fans will say that he wasn’t given the service but even so, with Carroll upfront we look 100 times more dangerous than with him the awful Malian. Carroll has the ability to make something out of nothing compared to Maiga who can’t even take chances that other make for him. I hear people say that he isn’t big enough to play up top for an Allardyce side but he is 6 foot 2 inches! That’s only one inch smaller than Carroll so that argument is completely invalid.
I struggle to understand why Momo Diame was forced to play on the wing. He is one of our best players and to play him out of position is inexcusable even if he did hand a first Premier League start to Ravel Morrison. If anything I would have preferred to see Ravel out on the wing and Momo in the centre.
I am amazed that I have managed to wait until now to vent my anger over referee Andre Marriner’s decision to not show a red card to Morgan Schneiderlin, or even give a free-kick! How A TWO-FOOTED challenge cannot result in a red card when we are constantly told that it is an automatic sending off, I cannot understand and never will. A disgraceful decision!
Kevin Nolan’s superb goal was wrongly ruled out for outside when Matt Jarvis was clearly on.
Our opportunity to win the game that we had been crying out for fell to the man who we had definitely not been crying out for it to fall to…James Collins who blazed over from 12 yards out.
All in all a very decent point. It could have been more but it also could have been less.