West Ham superstar Jarrod Bowen is one honest guy who is more than ready to own up to his errors.
And he has made it clear that he allowed West Ham to suffer last season as he attempted to look good enough for Gareth Southgate’s World Cup squad.
He admits this was the main thing on his mind and – as his goal stats show – that his game suffered before he ultimately missed out on the Quatar event anyway.
All was forgotten of course with his Conference Final winner and the Hammers fine end to the Premier League season but Bowen was disappointed with himself given his apparent World Cup obsession.
He managed only six Premier League goals and knows this was probably because he was trying too hard to make himnself look good.
Bowen told Rio Ferdinand’s Vibe with FIVE that he “let it play on [his] mind” in the early months of the campaign saying it was a “mistake.”
Bowen said: “That first feeling I had, Hungary away, putting on that shirt for the first time and signing the national anthem is probably the proudest moment of my life.
“I think that’s why it probably affected performances and I wasn’t happy with them first half of the season because I was thinking too much of going to the World Cup, probably trying to look too good instead of trying to play my own game.”