- West Ham lost 3-1 to Newcastle United on Sunday
- The Hammers are on the brink of Premier League relegation
- Jarrod Bowen hasn’t scored in his last 11 games
As West Ham United lick their wounds from their 3-1 defeat at Newcastle United on Sunday, the inquests behind Nuno Espírito Santo’s side’s abject performance have firmly begun, with the Hammers on the brink of relegation.
Nuno talked about playing into the atmosphere in his pre-match press conference, aiming to feed off what could be a tense environment following a lacklustre Magpies season. However, from the first whistle, it was West Ham’s anxiety that was capitalised on.
Newcastle’s high press was menacing and pinned West Ham in their own half, until Nuno changed the structure by introducing Valentín Castellanos on the half-hour mark. Yet, despite the change, Jarrod Bowen’s influence remained muted, as it has for the past three matchweeks.
Whisilt Castellanos, Crysencio Summerville and even Callum Wilson have often looked bright in West Ham’s past three defeats, Bowen has cut a frustrated, flagging and uncharacteristically futile figure. In fact, the Hammers skipper hasn’t scored since March 9, against Brentford in the FA Cup, and you would have to go back to January to find his last league goal.
Despite that, Bowen remains, by far, West Ham’s most productive player with 8 goals and 10 assists in the league. However, that production has been absent in the most crucial part of West Ham’s season. Why?
Jarrod Bowen ranks sixth in the Premier League for minutes played
Often, when a player like Bowen – a forward whose game is based upon capitalising space and being alert to developing box situations ahead of opposition defenders – goes through a rough patch, it can be seen in their physical level. After all, Bowen has taken on a significant physical and mental load since joining West Ham in 2020 from Championship side Hull City.
According to Transfermarkt, Bowen ranks sixth in the league for minutes played – third if we are only accounting for outfielders. The English international’s 3,319 minutes is West Ham’s most, nearly 400 more than Mateus Fernandes’s 2,936. Bowen has only missed 11 minutes of Premier League action
When we look at the players around Bowen, we also see a correlation in players hobbling towards the season’s finish line. Everton’s James Garner, who’s played five more minutes than Bowen, has seen his England-contentious form wane in the final months of the season. The midfielder was one of the league’s most productive players in his position in the winter, but has only laid off one assist.
Across Merseyside, Virgil van Dijk’s defensive powers have clearly dwindled this season, and it has been more pronounced towards the end of Liverpool’s season. The 34-year-old centre-back can still prove vital from set-pieces, scoring six this season; he leads a backline that has only kept one league clean sheet in their last ten.
“The press that we did was all wrong, we were late jumping up to them and we were making mistakes,” Bowen said following West Ham’s defeat at St James’ Park.
“We’ve made too many mistakes, and again we’re in a position where we’re 2-0 down early on, from which it’s always an uphill battle.
“It’s hard to find the answers because you always want to try and solve it straight away, but ultimately we have to look at ourselves and hold our hands up.”
As stated, Bowen has tended to play big minutes over the course of West Ham’s previous seasons. After all, the 29-year-old’s production has been largely unmatched, but with no European campaign to draw inspiration from for the weekend and no replacement capable of justifying resting him, Bowen, like West Ham, has limped towards the season’s conclusion and is likely to suffer the consequences.
