Finally Thomas Tuchel rolled the dice and change the starting eleven to include West Ham’s captain Jarrod Bowen in his familiar right sided’ club position for the away fixture against Albania in the last crop of internationals for 2025.
England have of course already qualified so the hope was always that the German manager would use the game to offer squad players a chance to start and impress.
Bowen responded with a typically upbeat, fizzing performance and a couple of attempts one of which was well saved by Albanian goal keeper Thomas Strakosha in what was England’s best chance of the half.
Described by TV pundit Ian Wright as ‘looking well up for it’, Bowen impressed with his trademark high energy performance from the start.
Whether Tuchel persevere with Bowen or makes changes at half time remains to be seen. Hopefully Hammer Bowen will get the full 90 minutes to stake his claim to a World Cup squad selection.
Bowen’s first contribution was to fire a cross over in the second minute as England started on the front foot.
He does seem to offer a different dimension to Bukayo Saka – speaking as an objective West Ham fan, of course: The main thing is to hope he comes through unscathed, impresses his International manager and is rested and ready to resume Premier League duties next weekend.
He would have scored if that idiot Saka hadn’t got in his way in the second half.
Would love to see things properly click for Bowen playing for England. He always looks lovely and up for it but doesn’t seem to get the rub of the green. Woukd love to see him score one his trademark West Ham type goals playing for England.