West Ham boss David Moyes admits victory over Southampton was "vital".

Defeat would've plunged the Irons into the bottom three, but they overcame a sluggish start to win courtesy of Nayef Aguerd's towering 25th-minute header, awarded after a four-minute VAR review by Peter Bankes, and rise to 14th in the standings.

Moyes later said: "I think we deserved to win.

"It was a bit anxious because we didn't start the game well and we had talked and we had planned about how we would start the game better so that was a disappointment for me.

"We played backwards, we tried to play around the back and we know they were a very good pressing team who would put us under pressure, so I didn't think we dealt with the opening part of the game well.

"But thankfully we got a goal from a wide free-kick with a good ball in and good header, and it gave us something to hang onto. After that, it wasn't the best game we've ever seen at London Stadium, but it's a vital win for us.

"I've got to say, the atmosphere today was terrific.

"I could sense the anxiety and we could all sense it, but I don't think it was turning into a negative; it was more to do with 'come on, let's get playing forward a little bit more'.

"We were desperate to start the game very quickly and we didn't today and I'll look again at the reasons why we didn't, but ultimately we ground it out, we didn't concede a goal which gave us a great chance of getting a result, and we nicked a goal from a set piece.

"It was a superb set-piece goal, and I actually thought we were a bit unlucky not to score more goals from a couple of corners.

"I thought we looked a little bit more dangerous at times than we had done and we had other opportunities, but ultimately the team who was losing was always going to take the fight and commit more and they did.

"I've watched Southampton play a couple of times live in the last few weeks and they're making a game of it, so it's not that they're letting teams roll over them and beat them, far from it."