Premier League 2018/19: Southampton vs West Ham

West Ham vs Southampton pitted two teams with upturned form against each other. Southampton, buoyed by the change in manager, came into the match off the back of consecutive wins versus Arsenal and Huddersfield. West Ham entered with a form of winning four out of the previous five matches. The tactically entertaining match ended 2-1 to West Ham through the individual brilliance of Felipe Anderson netting two goals.

The match provided two interesting tactical situations. The first tactical analysis of interest was Southampton’s newly instilled pressing system versus West Ham’s strong wide play. The second tactical scenario was the area on the pitch that Southampton targeted to attack.

Southampton press

Southampton started the match in a 3-4-2-1 formation to go up against West Ham’s 4-2-3-1 alignment.

Southampton’s front three of Stuart Armstrong, Danny Ings and Nathan Redmond set the tone of the press by defending narrow with the trigger to press being a ball played wide. Ings positions himself between the West Ham center-backs and both attacking midfielders, Armstrong and Redmond, are tucked in to keep the ball from the West Ham center. Southampton is inviting the pass wide.

Once the trigger of the ball out wide occurs, Southampton attempted to press through isolating the ball on the sideline. From the image below, we see the intentional path that Redmond takes to force the ball wide. Redmond curves his movement to close down West Ham’s Aaron Cresswell. This intentional path removes the possible pass inside to Declan Rice, isolating the ball on the sidelines.