News

Bowen calls for Irons respect after night of his life

|

Jarrod Bowen has been nothing short of sensational, since  joining the |Hammers and now admits he has just experienced the greatest night of his life.

He was probably speaking too for the vast majority of supporters after 90 minutes of breathless excitement which saw him grab his 15th goal of the season –  three of which have come following a longish injury spell.

It was an inspired signing and at around £20 million another,  ridiculous though it sounds given we are talking in millions, a bargain basement buy.

His link up play with Mikey Antonio is becoming a feature of a man whom  CandH Facebook admin operative Carol Combes describes as the Duracell Bunny.

Last night will live with the man forever as it will the rest of us and we are now looking at more of the same against Eintracht Frankfurt. These are moments to treasure for all of us as they clearly are for him

And commenting after the match the No 20 declared: “It’s just getting better and better. I wouldn’t have dreamt it eight years ago or whatever it was [when I was playing non-league football]. It’s just madness. My old man was here and it’s just one hell of a journey.”

“Ah, it’s the best night of my life, for sure! Like I said before about missing the Sevilla game, when I was there but I wasn’t there if that makes sense, to do it again tonight away from home, seeing the fans, seeing the way we got their crowd rocked, it was unbelievable.

Bowen and Lanzini celebrate in Lyon

We knew the way they defended and we knew they left a lot of space and I was there {for the goal;}. It was on my right foot and credit to the coaches and everyone who puts the work in because there are a lot of people who think it’s easy, but on your weaker foot it’s hard, but I knew when I struck it, it was in the back of the net.”

 For me, playing off the right and being left footed, everybody thinks ‘he just wants to come in off the wing on his left foot’, so to put that work to be able to do it on my weaker side, I’m reaping the benefits like I did tonight.”

“It’s just pure joy, pure passion, pure emotion. The fans were so high up but we could still hear them when we came out, so to do it for them away from home and win 3-0, what a special night.”

We don’t want to be losing semi-finalists. We respect the opposition that we’ve got. We’ve beaten two great teams so far [in Sevilla and Lyon], but Frankfurt are a great team as well, as to beat Barcelona who were probably favourites to win the whole thing, we’re going to respect them.

But we’ve got to be respected as well, with the teams we’ve knocked out and the manner in which we’ve done it as well. We’ve got a lot of Premier League games coming up now that we want to focus on because we want to finish in the European places again, and what an opportunity for us!”

Share this article

Hugh Southon is a lifelong Iron and the founding editor of ClaretandHugh. He is a national newspaper journalist of many years experience and was Bobby Moore's 'ghost' writer during the great man's lifetime. He describes ClaretandHugh as "the Hammers daily newspaper!"

Follow on Twitter @hughsouthon