West Ham United continued their impressive run of form in all competitions on Sunday afternoon with a 4-0 win over Bournemouth on Sunday afternoon
Goals from Michail Antonio, Lucas Paqueta, Declan Rice saw the Hammers take a three-goal lead at the Vitality Stadium, with Pablo Fornals adding a fourth from the bench with a remarkable scorpion kick.
As West Ham climbed up to 13th in the table, six points clear of the Premier League’s relegation zone, here are five of the major talking points from the Hammers’ biggest away win of the season.
READ MORE: The reasons behind David Moyes' passionate West Ham celebrations during Gent win
Bournemouth brilliance
Going into the trip to Bournemouth, West Ham were playing for the seventh time in three weeks, and although fatigue could have easily set in, momentum and adrenaline is certainly compensating for a lack of preparation and rest between matches at present.
While West Ham went into the game off a brilliant week, coming from behind to earn a 2-2 draw with Arsenal before knocking Gent out of the Europa Conference League in emphatic fashion.
Within five minutes, West Ham managed to do something that they have not managed to do for 11 months, score inside the opening 15 minutes of a Premier League match. Aaron Cresswell, back in the side after a midweek rest, fizzed in an in-swinging corner to find Antonio unmarked in the box, with the Jamaican international snapping up the chance to score for the third time in under 72 hours.
Like London buses, West Ham waited the best part of a year for a league goal inside the first 15 minutes of a game, but they only had to wait seven minutes for a second.
As Vladimir Coufal took the ball off the feet of Marcus Tavernier, he quickly exchanged a pass with Jarrod Bowen before sending a looping cross from the right side to the back post. Bournemouth’s Jack Stephens was under it, but found himself beaten by the run and jump of Paqueta, who got above him to head in and make it 2-0.
Although West Ham were leading, it was Bournemouth who largely controlled the match, especially when 2-0 down, the difference was, in both boxes, it was West Ham that were winning the needed battles.
Bournemouth had a flurry of chances and goalkeeper Lukasz Fabianski was needed to make saves to deny Jefferson Lerma from range and good chances for both Marcus Tavernier and Dominic Solanke, with those saves proving crucial in keeping West Ham in the tie.
At a drinks break, West Ham were able to regroup, with Moyes frustrated at the spell in the first half following West Ham’s second goal, with Bournemouth going close to a goal on multiple occasions. Rice and Nayef Aguerd were among those Moyes was especially keen to speak to.
Whatever was said in those discussions did the trick and shortly before the interval, West ham made it 3-0.
Again, Bournemouth’s Achilles’ heel proved to be defending set-pieces and crosses, the source of Rice making it 3-0. As Cresswell’s corner was flicked away by the head of Solanke, it fell perfectly for Rice in the box, who ran onto it and unleashed a superb strike too hot for Neto to handle, his fourth of the season in all competitions and his second in as many games.
In the second half, as much as they did for a big portion of the first half, Bournemouth looked threatening with their chances, helped by the half-time introduction of Kieffer Moore. Moore looked to cause problems at crosses, as well as chances for the likes of Tavernier and Solanke.
While Bournemouth had chances, when they flurried forward, West Ham often cleared or cut them out and were quick to break on the counter. Twice, Said Benrahma got forward, cut inside and shot at Neto, the first a tame effort, but the second was at the end of a great team move and although it had much more fizz, it was still straight at Neto.
Shortly after, Paqueta created two good chances for Antonio on the break, putting him down the left side and through on goal in quick succession, but both were not taken.
Moyes went to the bench and made two changes shortly after those missed chances, and it was duo of Antonio and Benrahma taken off, with Danny Ings and Pablo Fornals bought on.
Within minutes, Fornals, took his chance after limited minutes in recent months, scoring one of the goals of the season just days after Rice thought the accolade was his.
As Bowen got down the right side and attacked the byline, he dinked a cross towards Fornals, but with the ball behind the Spaniard, he quickly improvised and met the ball with an acrobatic scorpion kick, side-footing past Neto, who was left wrong-footed and bewildered.
The Spaniard raced towards the travelling away fans, who were forced to overcome all sorts of pre-match travel chaos and serenaded him as he struggled to hold back the tears, a sign of just how much his lack of minutes has hurt him.
Still deterred, but with their glimmer of hope dashed, West Ham did see Bournemouth produce a late fight-back as Solanke’s own acrobatic effort went wide, but West Ham came close to a fifth on two occasions.
Substitute Flynn Downes hit a shot from outside of the penalty area on target in the closest he has come to a first West Ham goal, with Fornals then turning provider as West Ham had the ball in the net for a fifth time.
A cross out wide to Fornals on the right side saw him play a ball into fellow replacement Maxwel Cornet. The Ivorian controlled the cross rather than shooting first time, but still found himself, with a chance from point-blank range, eventually converting for what he thought was his first West Ham goal. However, his finish was rightly ruled out for offside.
West Ham may have found themselves defending and trying to shackle Bournemouth for spells of the game, they will clinical and at times, frightening on the counter attack, showing signs of their selves from recent years that has got them back-to-back top seven finishes and into back-to-back European semi-finals.
David Moyes’ inspirational message
In the period between Paqueta’s early header and Rice making it 3-0, Bournemouth virtually had all of the game on their own terms, despite chasing a 2-0 deficit at that time.
Aguerd had struggled to deal with Solanke, while Bournemouth’s forward passing was get them in between West Ham’s midfield and back line, although whatever West Ham’s mostly solid back four did not deal with, Fabianski did.
As Paqueta went down injured, a small break ensured where Moyes was able to vent his frustrations at his players, having shouted “get off him” to Aguerd, telling him to not mark Solanke too tightly, but Aguerd stayed tight, Solanke span past him and got a shot off, whcih Fabianski had to match well.
At the short interval, Moyes was having words with both Aguerd and Rice, with the West Ham captain looking far from pleased, despite being 2-0 up and closely approaching the interval.
Whether it was Moyes’ words, Rice’s anger, fortune, or a combination of any of those factors, whatever it was worked as Rice made it 3-0 three minutes before the break in West Ham’s first real opportunity since going 2-0 up.
Asked what Moyes told Rice in that window, Moyes told football.london: “I told him that I didn’t think his passing had been good enough in the opening part of the game.
“That’s something, his standards are so high but we’re not just going to pat him on the back all of the time. Too much praise makes you soft.”
While it may have not had the stunning long range strike seen against Southampton and Nottingham Forest, or the 60-yard gallop, dribble and finish he produced against Gent, what the goal did have was Rice pouncing with instinct on quality onto what was only really a sniff of a chance, taking away the momentum that was growing within Bournemouth’s players.
West Ham fans’ Declan Rice message
That goal, and his recent displays against Arsenal and Gent, led to a lot of love from West Ham’s away support, who were at their vocal best at Bournemouth.
After making it 3-0 on the stroke of half-time, the Hammers’ supporters debuted a new chant, with Rice being heavily linked with a move to one of Arsenal or Chelsea at the end of this season.
“One more year, one more, Declan Rice. One more year, one more year, I say. One more year, one more year, Declan Rice. Playing football the West Ham way,” was the song West Ham’s travelling fans were chanting, but it did not stop there.
In the second half, it continued and grew, each time fans sung it, they added a year on, with chants of “five more years” and “ten more years” being sang from those who have seen him become one of the world’s best central midfielders in a matter of years.
Rice himself posted on Twitter after the game to thank the fans and as much as they would have appreciated the message, they would love it so much more if they knew for certain that was not Rice currently playing potentially his final season in claret and blue.
In thanks to the supporters, Rice tweeted: “West Ham fans today… No words for you all. Incredible,” followed by an emoji of a love heart and clapping hands.
Pablo Fornals’ tears
There was a really special and touching few seconds when West Ham made it 4-0 in the 72nd minute.
As Bowen’s cross was turned in by the scorpion acrobatics of Fornals he ran to the West Ham fans and could not stop himself from shedding a few tears as the Hammers’ supporters sang his song.
Fornals was given a huge hug by Rice and a number of his other teammates, letting the emotion of a frustrating few months on the pitch for him come out as he scored his first goal since November’s Carabao Cup defeat to Blackburn Rovers.
In West Ham’s last 12 league matches, Fornals has started just once and although he has played in ten of them, six of them were cameos that lasted no longer than 16 minutes.
Last season, Fornals made 54 club appearances, three more than any other West Ham player and although Fornals has played 41 times in all competitions this term, he has played 1,892 minutes, over 750 of them have come outside of the Premier League
Asked about Fornals’ tears after the win, Moyes said he understands why Fornals was emotional due to his lack of game time, admitting he wishes he had managed to play him more this term.
“Let me tell you, he is a brilliant, brilliant team player. He’s a great lad,” said Moyes. He’s probably not had enough minutes and I’ve found it difficult to find him [some].
“It’s not because of his form, because he’s a really great player. I hope we can, I hope we can find a way of getting him more minutes because what Pablo does, Pablo scores goals as well as his all-round play and it’s been pretty difficult to give him as much as time. I’m sure he was emotional, because he wants to play and today, he deserved it.
“I think nearly set up another one as well, he set up the one for Maxi so he was on the verge of a goal and assist and he was maybe on for only 20 minutes or so. I’m really pleased for Pablo.”
11-month wait over in Gent Deja vu
Not since the 4-0 win away at Norwich City on May 8, 2022 had West Ham scored four goals in an away Premier League match, just a couple of weeks shy of it being a year to the day since that thumping at Carrow Road.
Until Sunday’s win over Bournemouth, it was not since that day in Norwich where West Ham had scored in the opening 15 minutes of a league game, being the only Premier League side not to have done so before kick-off.
Antonio’s header gave West Ham a thumping start and killed the early momentum and hope from the Cherries, but their long-awaited early goal record quickly went from one extreme to another.
The Jamaican’s header was West Ham’s earliest league since December 1, 2021 against Brighton and Hove Albion, when Tomas Soucek scored in the same minute.
Seven minutes later, West Ham doubled their tally of pre-15th minute league goals for the season from one to two, when Paqueta headed in Coufal’s cross.
For the first time since April 2021, West Ham scored twice in the first 15 minutes when Jesse Lingard and Fornals notched early in a 3-2 win away at Wolverhampton Wanderers.
There was also a sense of Deja vu in the goalscorers from the win over Gent less than 72 hours prior. Like in the Gent win, Antonio got West Ham’s first with a header and also like the Gent win, Paqueta struck second and Rice followed in to make it three. Had Antonio got the fourth instead of Fornals, it would have been a perfect recreation.
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