WOLVES IN CHEAP CLOTHING
West Ham 2 Wolverhampton Wanderers 0
Like suddenly being dealt a 22 card hand, David Moyes must wonder what his best First XI might now be for a Premier League game. Following a season when West Ham managed to score in every home fixture, they have currently only netted one single home goal.
The big question on social media is why has Moyes not started a top flight game with his striker Gianluca Scamacca? The lanky Italian has yet to score in the Premier League, but he has yet to start at home. So, today, a quick butcher’s at the teamsheet reveals that this is Scamacca’s big chance. If he takes it with both hands, he may find himself starting every game.
Michail Antonio meanwhile has been chalking up the air miles, and the international minutes, having played nearly 90 for Jamaica in the week against Argentina. This is perhaps an easy out for Moyes in choosing to keep him on the bench, but as Antonio himself found out all those years ago at Upton Park under Slaven Bilic, if you take your chances with both hands, they will never be able to leave you out of the Starting XI again. Now that chance has fallen to Scamacca, himself part of the Italian international side who beat England 1-0 a week ago.
Wolves, or the Portuguese 2nd XI, are themselves in a bit of a pickle, and if they are beaten this afternoon they will find themselves in the bottom three. But then again they were one of the few sides last season that stopped West Ham from scoring, at Molineux a year ago, where they fought out a narrow 1-0 win. That put the kybosh on West Ham’s impressive start, so Hammers can reverse their bad start in the League and use this game to snap into action.
With all of this in mind, West Ham start the game promisingly, playing one touch training ground routines over the first few minutes, leaving Wolves to watch their shadows before ending up chasing them. Just when it looks as though this might be an annihilation of a win with cricket score chapters, Wolves come to life, Podence and then Moutinho both coming within a whisker of putting the Black Country Bravehearts ahead.
Then, on the half hour, Bowen finally gets his mojo working from Scamacca’s pass, and though his goal bound effort is charged down, the loose ball finds Scamacca who tees himself up for a volley that hits the back of the net before José Sá can move across his goal to field it.
First half injuries to Cornet and Pedro Neto see two early substitutes on in the game, but there is no further addition to the score before half-time. Other than the goal, the first half has been memorable for the form of Dawson, who looks like he’s never been away, and Souček who has missed very little in defence or bringing the ball safely out from there with measured patience, and little fuss.
The second goal comes just after the hour and is part of a team move whose energy has been supplemented by the replacement of Cornet with Fornals. Another passing routine that is begging for punctuation finally receives a capital stamp from Bowen on the edge of the area as he rifles the loose ball left-footed past Sá. Bowen subsequently spectacularly dislocates his finger in front of the Billy Bonds stand, but it is snapped back and put into a temporary splint to allow him to aggravate the Wolves defence. The adrenaline presumably allows him to play on without pain. The camera angle on that break would have invited spontaneous rivulets of vomit from most viewers, but as I don’t have access to replays from where I am, I am thankfully denied the chance to pore over the injury.
It will be interesting to see whether Moyes sticks with this same starting XI when Fulham are the visitors next Sunday, but in the meantime, fans can reflect on the fact that West Ham are out of the bottom three and have managed to almost double their goal tally in a single game, leaping to the dizzy heights of 15th position, level with Aston Villa. The most interesting stat of all to emerge from this game is that with every one of Scamacca’s starts, West Ham have won, and in all but two of these he has scored. What would that have you conclude if you were David Moyes?
1 Lucasz Fabianski, 3 Aaron Cresswell, 4 Kurt Zouma, 15 Craig Dawson, 24 Thilo Kehrer, 28 Tomas Souček, 11 Lucas Paquetá, 7 Gianluca Scamacca, 14 Maxwell Cornet 20 Jarrod Bowen, 41 Declan Rice (captain)
Substitutes: 9 Michail Antonio, 8 Pablo Fornals, 33 Emerson
Goalscorers: Gianluca Scamacca, Jarrod Bowen
