By Kris Gonzo | Senior West Ham Columnist (Follow on X)
The thing that struck me most about West Ham’s 3-2 win at Bolton was that, in the end, the stronger squad probably won the game.
That’s certainly not meant as any disrespect to Bolton, who were excellent for long periods. At the hour mark this was a completely even contest, hanging in the balance at 2-2. There was very little between the teams in terms of possession or chances and, if anything, Bolton had exposed some fairly obvious weaknesses in Nuno Espírito Santo’s side.
West Ham certainly weren’t flexing their Premier League muscles for much of the game, despite having far more players with experience at the highest level. Kyle Walker-Peters was having a torrid time, Pablo and Mohamadou Kanté weren’t really working as an attacking partnership and Bolton’s pace caused us plenty of problems.
West Ham’s bench made the difference
But the difference became apparent when both managers started making substitutions.
Nuno was able to remove Walker-Peters and replace him with the vastly experienced Joël Veltman. The Dutchman immediately looked far more comfortable and eventually supplied the low cross for Jarrod Bowen’s winning goal.
Manor Solomon also replaced Edvin Austbø and gave Bolton something different to worry about. Lewis Orford and Joël Piroe followed from the bench as West Ham were able to freshen up several areas of the pitch.
Espirito Santo used his squad depth to good effect against Bolton
Bolton, meanwhile, were having to remove some of the players who had caused West Ham the most trouble, including Dong and Iling-Junior.
That was probably where the game changed.
Bowen’s quality eventually told
Bowen increasingly began to look like the best player on the pitch and, by the end, was oozing class and confidence. As reflected in our West Ham player ratings, his second goal was a proper poacher’s finish and he really should have completed his hat-trick late on.
Bolton deserve enormous credit because they made this extremely difficult. But ultimately West Ham didn’t win because they dominated them or played them off the park.
We won because, as the game wore on, Nuno was able to look at his bench and bring on better players to fix the problems.
Sometimes having the stronger squad is enough.
Let’s cut to the chase. West Ham only won because their keeper stuffed up when he should easily have saved Bowen’s shot. It was almost comical!
Championship defences are not nearly as good as premier league ones is the main difference I’ve noticed.
We look a bit better than other teams but I have no confidence we’d be cutting it in the premier league, some of our players look decidedly championship.
I think the point is that we’ve dismantled our Prem League team and built one simply to get promoted ?
Hi Gonzo, hoping you see this message. Ive been searching everywhere for an email address for you or Geo – on your hammerschat.com theres a “contact page” but its empty – equally theres nothing on here and i dont want to print my email address in a public forum. i had some memorabilia you might want (or not!) 🙂
No probs Marc, I’ve sent it onto Gonzo.
What a painful watch it was.Bolton played the better football against a a ragged West Ham “team” .I think the manager put all the names in a hat and pulled out eleven. And said carry on boys..Why on Pablo gets on the pitch is complete mystery,just runs around like a headless chicken,different team when Piroe is on the pitch.G
Nailed it.
I’ll take this scoreline for every match. Loving Nuno ball.