Having watched Ollie Watkins’s lunchtime hat-trick at Villa Park, Gareth Southgate may well have had his fill of friendly reminders ahead of announcing his latest England squad this coming Thursday.
But were the Three Lions manager in the mood for just one more, he need have looked no further than the London Stadium, where Jarrod Bowen continued his superb start to the campaign to set West Ham on their way to the most routine of 2-0 wins over a desperate Sheffield United.
Bowen’s opener here was his fifth goal in seven Premier League matches this season, his first at home after a run of four in as many games on the road, and achieved the not especially challenging task of shattering the limited early resolve of a visiting side who, after being thumped 8-0 by Newcastle last week, showed few signs of the promised response.
David Moyes had insisted on Friday that it was too early to write any of the newly-promoted sides off as destined for the drop, but his generous interpretation of the Blades’s early season struggles must have been tested by their showing here.
Moyes’s own side, in a fashion that has not always been their trademark, made a straightforward challenge on paper look similarly so on grass. Victory, with Tomas Soucek adding a second goal that killed the game before the break, confirmed that back-to-back League defeats against Liverpool and Manchester City had done little to halt the momentum of their impressive start, one he believes has been fuelled by the lasting afterglow of June’s Europa Conference League triumph in Prague.
"A class apart"
— Standard Sport (@standardsport) September 30, 2023
🗣 @MalikOuzia_ reflects on a routine win for West Ham against Sheffield United #WHUSHU pic.twitter.com/h8MTxDLMzG
It is not only Bowen who looks back to his best. Vladimir Coufal has emerged from his summer break four years younger and laid on the opener here for a third assist in as many league matches, having managed just one last season. Soucek, scorer in successive midweeks in cup action, added a first League goal of the campaign to already match his all-competitions tally for the entirety of last term.
Bizarrely, having seen his side concede eight at home on Sunday, Paul Heckingbottom had made only one change, with forward Ollie McBurnie brought back in after suspension. But if the gamble had been in offering the same set of players the chance to make some amends for their Newcastle humiliation, it backfired spectacularly. The visitors were hesitant in their rare attacks, and largely hapless at the back, allergic to every second-ball.
Newcastle had exposed the Blades’ set-piece weakness and so it was little surprise that James Ward-Prowse’s corners caused early problems, Bowen’s header palmed out by Wes Foderingham before Nayef Aguerd’s follow-up was headed clear off the line.
The opener, though, came from open play, Coufal left to charge into space down the right and pick out an unmarked Bowen, the winger’s first-time finish the mark of a player whose relationship with the back of the net is back on over-familiar terms. It had taken the 26-year-old until April to net his fifth League goal last season and, having raced to the landmark, must surely be worth another look in an England shirt having not featured since his maiden call-ups in the summer of 2022.
Soucek, meanwhile, is enjoying renewed attacking licence this season, and has greater incentive to exploit it thanks to the crossing quality of Ward-Prowse and a reborn Coufal. The gangly midfielder had already glanced just wide from his countryman’s delivery when charging onto Michail Antonio’s pass to slide cleverly beyond the committed Foderingham to double the half-time lead.
Periods of the second-half were almost comically sedate, West Ham - who coming into this game had seen less of the ball this term than every top flight side bar Luton - playing keep-ball and Sheffield United reticent to try and win it back.
Moyes may have been frustrated that his team did not show Newcastle’s remorselessness of a week ago, despite the introductions of Mohammed Kudus and Said Benrahma in the hope of a finishing charge. On the occasion of his 900th League match as a manager though, the Scot surely could not recall many more comfortable.
