Jarrod Bowen lifted West Ham out of the relegation zone
(Picture: AP)Few players have typified West Ham’s drop-off from last season quite like Jarrod Bowen.
One of the Premier League’s outstanding wingers last term, Bowen registered 18 goals and 13 assists across all competitions and finished the campaign with a first England call-up. This season, however, the 26-year-old has looked a shadow of that player, with just six goal involvements to his name before today and barely a ripple of debate prompted by his omission from Gareth Southgate’s squad for the World Cup in Qatar.
But with West Ham off rock-bottom only on goal-difference and with David Moyes’ job seemingly hanging by a thread, the former Hull man finally stepped forward with a reminder of why, even from his position wide on the right-flank, he had previously been so effective as the spearhead of the Hammers attack.
In the week that he and partner Dani Dyer announced they are expecting twins, Bowen scored twice with a pair of close-range finishes to lift Moyes’ side out of the relegation zone with a first League victory since October.
A £170million summer spending spree has naturally seen the finger-pointing for West Ham’s attacking failures targeted at playmaker Lucas Paqueta and forward Gianluca Scamacca, who have just four League goals between them and are yet to deliver any sort of consistent impact, despite occasional glimpses of their true quality.
Moyes, though, has not spared his old guard the criticism, stating how Bowen and Michail Antonio, in particular, have failed to come close to replicating the output of seasons past.
With just 15 goals in 19 League games, Moyes admitted on Friday to having gone “off-piste” with the signing of a proven Premier League striker in Danny Ings but the Scot decided against handing the former Aston Villa man an immediate start here.
Moyes had also spoken of the feeling of unity around the club despite their recent form, on show in the tributes for late joint-chairman David Gold ahead the first home game since his passing earlier this month.
The Everton end, by contrast, portrayed an institution divided, fans determined to showcase the extent to which it is rotting from within as stewards tried in vain to remove an array of banners protesting against the club’s hierarchy. One particularly striking example urged owner Farhad Moshiri and chairman Bill Kenwright to go to hell. Moshiri’s rare appearance in the directors’ box alongside a board banned from attending home games for their own safety felt significant for all sorts of reasons.
For almost half-an-hour, no form of emotion in the stands could do much to mask the reality of two sides struggling badly on the pitch, but Said Benrahma’s strike tipped over by Jordan Pickford was the catalyst for a passage of play in which West Ham finally began to approach the game as a must-win, rather than dare-not-lose.
The opener arrived on 34 minutes as Emerson - who had his best game in a West Ham shirt - crossed from deep and Kurt Zouma flicked on for Bowen to score. A lengthy VAR check for offside ensued, but when the verdict eventually went the home side’s way you sensed, at last, their luck might be about to turn.
Seven minutes later, that proved the case as Antonio’s pull-back defected into the path of Bowen, who, lifted by his opener, had gambled with a dart into the box. It was Bowen’s first brace since scoring twice against Manchester City in the penultimate game of last season, also, tellingly, the last time West Ham scored twice in the first half of a League game.
Things might have got hairy either side of the break, had Alex Iwobi’s shot not hit the outside of the post, then the Nigerian’s cross proved just too long for the sliding Dominic Calvert-Lewin. But with ten minutes to go, the home crowd could turn attentions, with a degree of comfort, to the misfortunes of their former player, Frank Lampard, in the visiting dugout, the former Chelsea man’s days - or even hours - in the job surely numbered.
A few yards across the touchline, Moyes will have known he is by no means out of the woods yet, particularly with a tough run against Newcastle, Chelsea and Tottenham to come. But thanks to the Bowen - whose signing early in Moyes’ second spell helped lift the Hammers clear of one relegation scrap - he should live to fight another day in this.
