Jarrod Bowen’s two goals against AFC Bournemouth have given him fresh determination and confidence that he can take his form into the new season against Newcastle on Saturday.
He has of course been finding the net prior to that with goals against Wycombe Wanderers, followed by two in the Betway Cup defeat by AFC Bournemouth at London Stadium on Saturday.
Amid all the current gloom and despondency, Bowen’s form continues to cheer and how good to have a player on board who is almost as good defensively as he is going forward.
He’s the type of guy who provides the perfect out when the defence is under pressure, can find the net, and makes important defensive interventions.
His form, along with that of Rice, Soucek and Antonio was part of the driving force that lifted us out of a relegation battle with time to spare.
He has returned in exactly the same sort of shape despite these only being friendly games and the signs are good for Saturday and beyond as far as he is concerned .
Commenting to www.whufc.com he said: “It’s getting that confidence of hitting the back of the net again. I got four in pre-season, and I’ll go into the games full of confidence and I know where the back of the net is.
“It’s important to get the minutes and. personally for me, to score goals as well, which is what I want to bring to the team going into the new season.”
“I’ve got a full season now to prove myself at the top level, which I still feel I need to do. That’s all I’ve got to do, work hard, take each game as it comes, try to play my A game every game and see what happens after that.
“I’m very excited, it’s always been my dream to play in the Premier League and now to have a full season at it will be a challenge for me to step up to this level again, but I’ve got the confidence in myself to step up.
“It’s been a shorter pre-season than normal because of the circumstances, but we’ve got good work in,” he explained.
“We’ve had games, and it’s important to get the minutes in. Yes, on Saturday we lost and it’s not just about minutes – we want to play better than we did against Bournemouth – but we’ll put it behind us now, go forward with the work we’ve done in the last three weeks and train hard ahead of the big one on Saturday.”
Wait till Bowen finds out we want to sign Tarkowski. The player who could have ended his career with that disgusting challenge in the game we played last season against Burnley. Bowen’s confidence will be right up there when he finds out he might have to face that in training every day.