Jarrod Bowen didn’t hold back after West Ham’s disappointing Premier League defeat to Nottingham Forest, acknowledging the performance “wasn’t good enough” and admitting things could have turned even bleaker.
“It’s not good enough,” Bowen said. “When you go down to ten men, it just gets tougher. Forest had the advantage, and we needed to be smarter defensively, but we failed. We conceded twice, and honestly, it could’ve been worse – it’s really frustrating.”
Despite his candid take on the overall game, Bowen was somewhat lenient in his assessment of the opening half. “The start of the game was quite open,” he noted. “We had a couple of chances, like Lucas Paquetá’s shot that they cleared off the line. Their goal was disappointing since it felt like an easy one to concede, but with ten men, it’s even harder.”
Yet Bowen’s claim of “a couple of chances” doesn’t quite match the stats. The Hammers only recorded one shot on target in the first half – and that came in the 46th minute. Forest were in control long before Edson Álvarez’s reckless red card, with West Ham managing just a single accurate cross and shot on target in the opening 45 minutes. Ironically, the team looked sharper after going down to ten men as coach Julen Lopetegui reinstated players to their usual positions, allowing Bowen to shine.
It’s hard not to sympathise with Bowen, West Ham’s standout player, who’s been handed the challenging role of captain and something of a poisoned chalice. He’s clearly making the best of a tough situation, but even he couldn’t deny the Hammers were fortunate to escape with a 3-0 score line.
Didn’t know we had a captain!
Where’s he been during these games or facing the press after?
Noble was always the man up front and faced the press no matter the result, in fact to the worse the result the more you saw and heard from him.
Not sure Bowen is captain material….
That’s not yo say he’s not a very good player.
I didn’t expect much at Forest as they are an in form team at home. But I did expect more than a 3-0 defeat that in all honesty might have been more.
I have no idea at all how we beat Man U. We were abject in the first half and most opponents would have been out of sight at half time.
I expected more than a 4-1 defeat at Spurs too, we don’t just lose we lose heavily.
I do not see any improvement, or any ideas that might result in improvement. I do not see Lopetegui being around for long even if he survives in the short term so I see it as better that he goes in the near future.
If a new manager were to have us finish just two places higher then that would pay the severences.
This is just regurgitated from the club web site. Not really anything new