WHZ Tactics: West Ham can beat Southampton if they exploit Saints defensive weakness
West Ham will want to ensure they do not go on their longest run of games without a win this season when they take on Southampton at St Mary’s on Tuesday night.
David Moyes’ men have failed to win in their last three outings ahead of their trip to the south coast this week to play a Saints side that have impressed in the Premier League but have also gone three games without tasting victory.
Both sides will be eager to return to winning ways against one another but West Ham will improve their chances of victory greatly if they exploit Southampton’s defensive weakness out wide.
Ryan Bertrand and Kyle Walker-Peters have both had great seasons for Southampton in an attacking sense but due to them being very forward-thinking full-backs, their tendency to press forward leaves the Saints vulnerable out wide in defence. Theo Walcott and Nathan Redmond also usually start out on the wings, neither of those are known for their ability to track back and defend.
When Raheem Sterling scored for Manchester City in their 1-0 win at Southampton earlier this month, Kevin De Bruyne and Bernado Silva managed to over-load the right-wing in order to take advantage of Bertrand’s lack of protection.
Bertrand is faced with both of the Man City players in the build-up while at the top of the picture, you can see that Walker-Peters has allowed Sterling to get inside of him. Ideally, in a situation like this, you would want the wingers back to help the defence, stay wide of Sterling and allow Walker-Peters to get goal-side.
De Bruyne predictably gets an easy position to cross the ball from and Sterling, using his advantage of being goal-side of Walker-Peters, manages to lose the right-back to get a shot off at goal.
When Southampton lost 3-2 to Manchester United last month, their weakness out wide was also exposed.
In the build-up to Bruno Fernandes’ goal, Bertrand was caught out way too high up the pitch, which caused the rest of Southampton’s defence to move out of shape and force sluggish defensive midfielder Oriol Romeu into a full-back role he isn’t comfortable with.
As you can see in the image below, Bertrand’s high position left Southampton’s back-four (linked together by the lines) horribly disjointed as four Man United players ran at them.
Looking at this image, it’s clear how easily Southampton get over-loaded due to their attack-minded players.
Edinson Cavani ends up wide on the right while Bertrand is still trying to play catch-up. Cavani ends up being able to get a cross into the box, finding Fernandes to score.
How do West Ham take advantage of this?
When playing with a back-three, the Hammers have been capable of over-loading the left-hand side of the pitch through Arthur Masuaku, on-rushing centre-back Aaron Cresswell and Pablo Fornals.
In the image below, when West Ham drew 3-3 with Tottenham earlier in the season, Cresswell and Masuaku played very high up on the left-hand side of the pitch and put a large amount of pressure on Spurs’ right-hand side [heatmaps via Wyscout].
There is going to be more than this game than simply making the most out of Southampton’s defensive weakness out wide.
Hasenhuttl is a good manager and could set his side up to deal with the potential threat that West Ham have down their left but this is definitely something Moyes is likely to be targeting on Tuesday night.
In other West Ham news, Frank McAvennie has rubbished the idea of Marko Arnautovic returning to the London Stadium.