Bowen scores brace as West Ham stun Wolves 4-0

Most of the pre-match discussion surrounded West Ham and the absence of David Moyes and Angelo Ogbonna, who are finishing their periods of self-isolation after positive COVID-19 tests. Alan Irvine led West Ham on the sideline in Moyes' place as the claret and blue side dominated Wolves all game and came away with a massive 4-0 win.

The game started off as a cagey affair, with neither side showing much attacking promise for the first 15 minutes apart from a couple of forrays forward by Neto and Adama Traoré.

That all changed on 17 minutes though, when West Ham took a free kick quickly and Pablo Fornals played a perfect ball into Jarrod Bowen who's curling finish was even better to give him his second goal of the season. Nuno Espirito Santo was quick to protest, claiming that the ball had been moving when the free-kick was taken. However, replays showed that it had been stationary for a split second before the kick was taken, and the goal stood.

Then it was down to Rui Patrício to keep Wolves in the game with a couple of extraordinary stops, the first to deny Soucek and the next Antonio. West Ham applied the pressure for the rest of the first half and really should have lead by more at the break after several big chances, most notably when Fornals sliced over the bar from 10 yards just before the half.

Wolves started slightly better in the second half but were still lacking their usual energy and impetus save the odd injection of pace from Adama Traoré.

Just before the hour mark, West Ham came forward on the counter-attack again: Fornals struck his shot against the post and Jarrod Bowen was in the right place at the right time to tap home from two yards into an empty net for his second goal of the night.

West Ham kept applying the pressure, forcing an impressive clearance from Saiss to deny Bowen a hatrick but any hopes of a comeback were dashed from the resulting corner. Thomas Soucek's flicked header at the near post took a slight deflection to beat a helpless Rui Patrício.

From there, West Ham shut up shop in search of a first clean sheet in their last 10 league games at home before Haller scored a brilliant header in the third minute of added time to put the icing on the cake of a great win.

Questions will be asked of Wolves, who looked totally unable to counter West Ham's solid defense despite a debut start for Nelson Semédo, who failed to catch the eye for anything apart from his defensive frailties. Record signing Fábio Silva and Ki-Jana Hoever were also both unable to make a difference off the bench in the second half in what was a poor night for Nuno's men.