David Moyes was happy with the way his West Ham United team held their nerve to secure a 1-0 Premier League victory over Southampton on Sunday.
The Irons kicked-off at London Stadium just a point ahead of the bottom-of-the-table Saints and inside the relegation zone, but overcame a sluggish start to win courtesy of Nayef Aguerd’s towering 25th-minute header, awarded after a four-minute VAR review by Peter Bankes, and rise to 14th in the standings.
There were further opportunities for the Irons to extend their lead through shots from Saïd Benrahma, Paquetá and Jarrod Bowen, who curled against the crossbar, and a Kurt Zouma header, before Southampton substitute Paul Onuachu crashed a header against the woodwork four minutes from the end.
West Ham then played out added-time professionally and referee Paul Tierney’s final whistle was welcomed with a loud cheer of approval by the Claret and Blue Army, Moyes, his staff and players.
The Hammers are now unbeaten in five Premier League home games in 2023, having collected eleven points from a possible 15, and with another London Stadium fixture at home to Newcastle United to follow on Wednesday evening, the manager is eager to extend that run and further improve his team’s position in the table.
I think we deserved to win.
It was a bit anxious because we didn’t start the game well and we had talked and we had planned about how we would start the game better so that was a disappointment for me.
We played backwards, we tried to play around the back and we know they were a very good pressing team who would put us under pressure, so I didn’t think we dealt with the opening part of the game well.
But thankfully we got a goal from a wide free-kick with a good ball in and good header, and it gave us something to hang onto. After that, it wasn’t the best game we’ve ever seen at London Stadium, but it’s a vital win for us.
I’ve got to say, the atmosphere today was terrific.
I could sense the anxiety and we could all sense it, but I don’t think it was turning into a negative; it was more to do with ‘come on, let’s get playing forward a little bit more’.
We were desperate to start the game very quickly and we didn’t today and I’ll look again at the reasons why we didn’t, but ultimately we ground it out, we didn’t concede a goal which gave us a great chance of getting a result, and we nicked a goal from a set piece.
It was a superb set-piece goal, and I actually thought we were a bit unlucky not to score more goals from a couple of corners.
I thought we looked a little bit more dangerous at times than we had done and we had other opportunities, but ultimately the team who was losing was always going to take the fight and commit more and they did.
I’ve watched Southampton play a couple of times live in the last few weeks and they’re making a game of it, so it’s not that they’re letting teams roll over them and beat them, far from it.
By the end, I felt as if we were the better team, even though we had to deal with one or two close things, because we just couldn’t get the second goal to settle the whole thing down.
I thought Lucas Paquetá grew into the game as it went on, and Jarrod was very good in the second half especially. We couldn’t get him enough of the ball in the first half as we didn’t really seem to come out down the right-hand side very often.
Overall, I’m pleased we kept a clean sheet and it’s given us something to build on.
We’re playing catch-up every week because we’re playing Thursday-Sunday.
The good thing about it is we’re one of the few clubs in Europe and my plan is to get to a European final, so that means we’re going to be playing a lot of Thursday games.
So that means we’re going to be coming into the stadium and if ever we need the supporters then it’s then because things can be difficult [if other teams have gone above you [on the Saturday] when you’ve dropped down.
The players have had to do this three or four times already and we could have three or four more Thursday games before we come back and play on a Sunday, so we’re going to need the crowd behind them to lift them with the workload we’ve got and us playing the last game [of a Premier League weekend].
