Time to make the best use of West Ham’s talisman – before we wear him out

Strikers, you would think, tend to have longer careers than wingers. West Ham’s own top scorer in the Premier League was himself a converted full back-stroke-winger who became the ‘beast’ that was Michael Antonio. And the chances are, he’d have seen his career curtailed long before the car crash that almost cost him his life, if he’d been hurtling up and down the wing all afternoon, twice a week for half a dozen years.

As it was, his hamstrings needed their own private treatment regime but West Ham managed to keep him in one piece long enough for him to notch sixty eight Premier League goals – still just a club record.

But it got me thinking, Jarrod Bowen hits thirty this year. You can see where I’m going with this.

The player who David Moyes signed in 2020 has won us a trophy, run his legs off and contributed blood, sweat, toil and tears for this club and still he’s there every match day, tackling back, doing his defensive duties, then haring up the other end and assisting or bearing down on goal himself. Oh and we made him skipper too just for good measure. An awful lot on our star man’s shoulders.

Is that the best use of Bowen as he leaves his ‘twenties behind? West Ham have no understudy, no support act ready to step into that right wing position to give him a breather or a chance to move centrally and become the ‘converted’ striker his first West Ham manager David Moyes used to churn out – be it Antonio, Arnautovic or, back at Everton now, Thierno Barry, his latest ‘convert’  to the striker role.

Perhaps Bowen needs a more central role? Perhaps West Ham need another winger to offer Scott Parker the chance to move Bowen inside, as he does with Manor Solomon on the left.

After all, our leading scorer and ‘assists’ king can’t influence games if he’s mired in tracking back down at the wrong end of the pitch. And he’s not getting any younger.