West Ham defeated Southampton 2-1 on Thursday night to get back to winning ways following a 2-0 home loss against Watford.

Nathan Redmond opened the scoring in the second half but the Saints were quickly denied by a fantastic Felipe Anderson strike from outside the box, with the Brazilian eventually scoring the game-winner.

Unwanted record broken by the Hammers

Although West Ham won four out of five league game in December, they weren't the favourites to win as the past scores certainly weren't in their favour.

Before the game the Hammers have won away at St Mary's only twice since 2000, despite beating Southampton quite regularly at home, winning four out of six.

Their last meeting ended with a 3-2 Southampton win in a game that certainly can be deemed as a thriller. Manolo Gabbiadini and Dusan Tadic put the Saints two-nil up before today's absentee Javier Hernandez tucked in a brace to bring his side level. The game finished off with a 93rd-minute goal from Charlie Austin who started today's game on the subs bench.

First-half struggles for both sides

The game started off with Southampton being on the front foot. Both Redmond and Danny Ings were creating all sorts of chances taking advantage of West Ham's late change, as Michail Antonio - initially meant for the subs bench - needed to come in straight into the starting XI in courtesy of Pablo Zabaleta who didn't pass his late fitness test before the game.

In the third minute Ings smoothly skipped past Antonio and Angelo Ogbonna, only to smash the ball straight into the side of Łukasz Fabiański's net.

After the first five to ten minutes nothing much happened, with both sides struggling to create clear goalscoring opportunities.

Lucas Perez was the closest player to break the deadlock, but his first-time shot wasn't accurate enough and skimmed past the post following a brilliant cross from Aaron Cresswell.

And as it seems to be in every West Ham game, a dull first half followed by a brilliant second one.

This time it wasn't the Hammers who scored first before the break.

Five minutes after the whistle, a fantastic double save by Fabiański following attempts by Redmond and Oriol Romeu was unfortunately turned in by the English winger as a clearance from Ogbonna struck his arm during a hectic few seconds in West Ham's penalty box.

The Hammers didn't let their rivals rest on their laurel's and equalised straight away.

Roughly two minutes later Felipe Anderson made the best out of Alex McCarthy's poor positioning and scored a perfect driven shot, straight into the left bottom corner.

Ralph Hassenhuttl's men wanted to get back on top straight away, but unfortunately - for them - got hit on a counter attack following their own corner kick.

Six minutes after his first goal of the game Anderson finished off a 16-second move, which was his eighth goal in his debut season in the Premier League.

Takeaways

Counter-attacking football

Despite often falling under the pressure, West Ham always finds their way to score. How? Because of Manuel Pellegrini's attacking style of play which allows them to contain their opponents' attacks, to the hit them on swift counter-attacks. The transition of the ball from their own box to it hitting the back of Southampton's net took only 16 seconds. Lightning speed.

Łukasz Fabiański

A lot of people were doubting if a 33-year-old relegated keeper was a good enough buy to replace Adrian. And as the time went on, it became clear that Fabiański whose work sometimes goes unnoticed, but without it, the Hammers wouldn't even be close their current ninth position. You really can't do better than that for £7m.

Versatility

The convertibility of players like Antonio has been clutch for West Ham this season following a very big injury list. With all three of Zabaleta, Fredericks and Byram out with injuries, the Englishman needed to step up yet again, and so he did. Great performance both going forwards and in defence completely cut off both Stuart Armstrong and Matt Targett from the game.

Man of the match

There are few candidates for the man of the match award, most noticeably Anderson, Fabiański or even Antonio. But arguably the player who deserved it the most - despite Anderson scoring both goals - was Declan Rice. The young defensive midfielder had been absolutely outstanding for the whole season, but today's game really shown his talent. 92% passing accuracy, 3/3 dribbles completed, 2/2 tackles won and 1 key pass. Immense.