Neither team managed to break the deadlock as the sides cancelled each other out in a moral win for both sets of defenders.
West Ham was without record signing Andy Carroll, as the forward picked up an injury in training. As a result, Maiga got the nod upfront alone for the visitors. Lambert returned to Southampton after his England adventure, where both teams would attempt to separate themselves having gone into the game equal on four points.
The opening period was cagey as we would expect with the knowledge that both teams were coming into the game on the back of a 1-0 loss. West Ham had the first real opening in the sixth minute, where Diame received the ball back from his cross and fired at the Southampton goal to win his team only a corner.
The best chance of the half came early on as Rodriguez pulled the ball back to Osvaldo, who found himself unmarked around 12yards out. He rifled his shot hard and low at Jaaskelainen who did well to block the ball and keep the scores even. Osvaldo should have done better with the goalkeeper already being committed in direction, and Southampton will be hoping for a greater display of quality in the coming weeks from their £17million signing from Roma.
West Ham had good cause to feel harshly done by on the half hour mark as they put the ball into the back of the Southampton net. Jarvis was played through from a nodded goal kick and Boruc was quickly off of his line to make a challenge. The ball fell for Nolan who lobbed the ball into the back of the empty net. The flag was up for offside against Jarvis, but on second look West Ham were on the wrong side of a very tight error from the assistant.
A dull forty five minutes even seemed to demotivate some of the players as Wanyama rocked up late for the second half and Southampton were forced to restart with ten men. He was quickly readmitted to the field as Southampton applied some early pressure. A shot from Wanyama was palmed away by Jaaskelainen to hand Southampton a corner. The ball was whipped in low towards Lambert, who did well to get his head on it, but was narrowly denied by the woodwork.
Schneiderlin gave a display of his athletic abilities on the hour mark as his bicycle kick was saved by Jaaskelainen. He then had a good attempt six minutes later as he hit a half volley to really test the West Ham goalkeeper. However, any questions of the keeper were answered as he pulled off a fine save and again kept the sides equal going into the final twenty minutes.
Ward-Prowse put in two good deliveries from free kicks deep into the second half to show that Southampton have options on the bench. Both set pieces were curling toward the attacking side but escaped the touch that was needed to open the scoring, much to the despair of the majority of the St Marys crowd.
West Ham then thought that they had finally created the chance that they needed to steal the match on eighty three minutes. The ball was pulled back to Collins who found himself alone deep inside the 18yard box, but the pressure was too much for the unnatural finisher who leant back and blazed his shot over the bar.
The final whistle blew to signal the end of a dreary afternoon on the south coast. Both teams had chances, but neither could take the opportunity to gain 3points as West Ham and Southampton finish the weekend sitting in tenth and eleventh places respectively.
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