After finally defeating notorious team Brentford 4-2 at home, David Moyes feels that West Ham have turned the corner.
After a disastrous run of eight games without a victory, Jarrod Bowen scored his first career hat-trick on a night of firsts to relieve pressure on manager Moyes.
Bowen became the first player to achieve a treble at the London Stadium and scored his first goals since before Christmas as the Hammers won their first game of 2024.
Despite all the discussion about their bad performance and Moyes’ future, West Ham is now back up to eighth place and competitive in Europe.
“Most Premier League teams go through challenging times. West Ham will undoubtedly be much like Manchester City and Liverpool,” Moyes stated.
“We’ve had trouble fielding our strongest team, but overall, we can compete with most teams if we can field our best players.
“I had hoped it would arrive. It was required. It’s been a bad six weeks for us. It’s satisfying to win at home and score four goals.
It’s not too horrible to be in eighth place this time of year. We constantly face some criticism, but we continue to push ourselves.
“There are numerous teams with substantial resources and expertise. We were fighting every season to avoid being demoted just three years ago.”
Before Neal Maupay pulled one back for the Bees, who had defeated West Ham in all five of their prior Premier League encounters, Bowen scored twice in the first seven minutes.
Midway into the second half, Yoanne Wissa pulled another back, Emerson Palmieri blasted a 20-yard shot, and Bowen headed his third.
“I’m really pleased for Jarrod, his performances have gone unnoticed as we’ve not been playing well,” said Moyes.
“He was a threat all night long with his all-around play and his manner of working, and hopefully the goals will put him back in England manager Gareth Southgate’s thoughts.”
“If you can play wide and you’re a goalscorer you will be of interest to the international manager.”
Leading wind-up merchant Maupay of Brentford was spotted getting into a violent argument with Kevin Nolan, the Hammers coach, as the sides emerged from the tunnel for the second half.
“I honestly had no idea who the argument was with; I had assumed it might have involved the fourth official. I can’t really tell you anything about it because I didn’t witness it,” Moyes remarked.
After Everton’s 10-point deduction was lowered to six, Brentford, who had already been further dragged into the relegation battle on Monday, lost again. This was their 12th straight loss since defeating West Ham at home in November.
- We didn’t perform well both individually and as a team today. In a direct evaluation, manager Thomas Frank said, “West Ham hit a good level, Bowen was unplayable, Emerson hit the top corner, and we lost 4-2.”
Our ability to put on steady performances is one of our strong points, therefore I need to watch the match again. We rarely play below our usual caliber in games, and this was only the third time this season that we have fallen short.
“There’s no way that the Everton situation had any impact,” Frank said in response to a question.
“I think right now I’m very irritated with our performance, that’s the main focus.”
