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Mark Noble’s mind games backfire as West Ham pay the penalty against Southampton

Late drama | Austin's stoppage time penalty won the match for Southampton: Jordan Mansfield/Getty Images
Late drama | Austin's stoppage time penalty won the match for Southampton: Jordan Mansfield/Getty Images

West Ham saw a first point of the season snatched from under their nose as Charlie Austin converted a last minute penalty to take all three points in a dramatic encounter at St. Mary’s.

And it seems he was helped by Hammers captain, Mark Noble.

Speaking after the game Austin, who sent summer signing Joe Hart the wrong way to score the winner after Pablo Zabaleta had fouled Maya Yoshida, revealed that Noble had tried to unsettle him in the build-up, and failed with his mind games.

"I was going to his right for the penalty, but then Noble said ‘Hart knows where you are going’, so I put it into the other side,” Austin told reporters.

Slaven Bilic would have been more than happy with a point, having come back from 2-0 down with ten men, thanks to a first-half sending off for Marko Arnautovic, but leaves with nothing from his first two games of the season despite a brace from fellow summer arrival Javier Hernandez.

It will be even more gutting that the winner was scored by Austin considering that, having been linked with the former QPR man before his switch to Saints, West Ham co-owner David Sullivan suggested he had ‘no ligaments in his knee’ when speaking to Hammers podcast Knees up Mother Brown.