David Moyes praised his West Ham United team’s attitude and work ethic following Tuesdsay’s goalless Premier League draw at Southampton.
The Hammers took to the pitch at St Mary’s Stadium just 50 hours after their 2-2 draw with Brighton & Hove Albion at London Stadium, but showed admirable resilience, determination and fitness levels to hold a Saints team who had enjoyed an extra day’s rest.
Moyes made five changes to his side, handing a debut to the impressive Craig Dawson and starts to Ryan Fredericks, Manuel Lanzini and Andriy Yarmolenko.
After a challenging first half edged by the home side, Said Benrahma, Jarrod Bowen and Michail Antonio arrived from the bench and the Irons almost snatched victory when Southampton goalkeeper Alex McCarthy denied the Algerian with a fine save late on.
Reflecting on the game, Moyes was pleased with the way his much-changed team nullified an opponent who had lost just four of 22 Premier League matches and scored 13 times in seven previous home matches this season
The players did really well to recover quickly after playing against Brighton & Hove Albion on Sunday.
We made a few changes, so it was a big day for some of them coming in for the first time and some of them coming in for their first game for a little while.
We’ve been very consistent with our team selection but I think, because the games are coming so quick, for us to have only one day of recovery and the opposition to have had one day more, we don’t think that was right.
If you look at Southampton and how good they have been in the first half this season, they have caused teams big problems here.
We were well aware of how good they’ve been in the first half and they didn’t disappoint us as we couldn’t get a foot on the ball in the first 15 minutes.
After that, we grew into it a little bit, but I was pleased to get to half-time at nil-nil as we hadn’t played as well as I’d have liked.
I thought we were playing against a good team and one of the most in-form teams in the Premier League, so it’s not a bad result to get a draw.
We had players we could bring on in attacking areas in the second half and when we did so, we were able to create more.
We’ve had a difficult period because we’ve been a bit short in some areas, so we’ve had to muddle through a little bit on some occasions, but we’ve picked up some good results.
We’ve maybe not played as well as I’d have liked recently, but hopefully we’re getting folk back to fitness because losing Mick and Arthur to injury over the past month was starting to take its toll on us a little bit.
Thankfully, the boys have come in and done a good job and we’re pleased we got a point, but a bit disappointed we probably had the best chance of the game and their ‘keeper has made a worldie of a save quite late on.
I wish you weren’t telling me it was our first clean sheet in eight games, because I’d rather be keeping them more regularly.
However, clean sheets will always give you a chance to win games and we have to do that better.
I’m pleased, but we just didn’t have enough creativity. In the first half, they played well, but certainly in the second half we got better.
We go to Everton on New Year’s Day having played twice since they last played on Boxing Day, as their fixture with Manchester City was postponed due to COVID.
We don’t want to complain about the fixture list, but the integrity of the game is really important, as we’re always being told.
Let’s hope the integrity of the game continues to be upheld and teams get things done fairly and we’ll see how it is.